Tarntanya/Adelaide with Ian McDougall

In this episode, we focus on Adelaide—a city of clarity. Streets framed by gardens. Squares laid out with foresight. A river threading quietly through civic life. Unlike other Australian settlements born from convicts or ports, Adelaide was conceived as a civic experiment: a city designed to reflect ideals, not just occupation. Colonel William Light imagined a place that was orderly, hygienic, and morally structured, yet flexible enough to grow with its people. Families of Scots, Cornish, and German Lutherans brought non-conformist values—a commitment to education, hard work, and collaborative progress—embedding these ideals into the city's very fabric. In this episode, we speak with Ian McDougall, a founding director of ARM Architecture whose practice spans nearly 40 years from design to education to advocacy. Ian is an Adjunct Professor at RMIT University and a Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Adelaide. The conversation explores what Adelaide's distinctive origins and physical clarity reveal about the relationship between urban form and civic values—and what lessons this carefully planned city might offer to the more chaotic and contested cities of today. Adelaide's story is one of intentional design meeting lived reality, a case study in how idealism shapes—and is in turn reshaped by—the city it produces. Check out the references from this episode.