The way cities get built is a quiet global catastrophe affecting all our lives. Buildings are too flat, too plain, too straight, too shiny, too soulless, too boring. This is the belief of designer Thomas Heatherwick.

In this first part of a new series for Radio 4, Thomas is on a mission to explain why this is far from a trivial issue - that it's bad for our health, bad for society and bad for the planet.

Backed by the latest cutting-edge scientific research, Thomas exposes the damage being done by the identikit modern urban environments scattered across the world.

Producer: Tom Pooley
A Tempo & Talker production for BBC Radio 4 Show less