Blueprint For Living - Full program ABC listen

Your weekly expedition to the heart of modern life through buildings, design, gardens and food.

From ancient Roman aqueducts to futuristic vertical farms, how can we blend historical wisdom and cutting-edge technology to make our cities resilient places to live? 

What would food writer Hetty Lui McKinnon eat if it was her last day on Earth?

And a writer takes us on a tour of his beloved Queensland coastal town.

Stretching for 170 kilometres and soaring 500 metres into the sky, how does The Line rank among the most grandiose architectural efforts in history? The story behind a Vogue editor's beloved Chanel jacket; and who wields the real influence when it comes to the world of social media food influencers?

Re-inventing the suburban backyard with regeneration and community in mind; re-designing the nature strip; Elizabeth David's Gratin Dauphinois and Besha Rodell's love of vintage glassware.

If you are dressed head to toe in black, polyester, nylon or some combination thereof, you may need a dress doctor. Linda Przybyszewski - Dress maker, historian and author of The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish - discusses the history of the dress doctors who helped women design, make and choose clothing for the workplace and home. She explains the design principles that guided the Dress doctors and their legacy in contemporary fashion and design.

Raw meat, egg slonking, seed oil panic and the war on “soy globalism” -  welcome to the obscurantist dietary fixations of the alt right. Jan Dutkiewicz, Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies at the Pratt Institute, explains how diet became a central issue in the culture war; And by way of counterpoint, chef of the year, Jo Barrett takes us to her Lorne restaurant where she cooks the dish she would make if it were her last meal on earth.