Jason Hardwick

Curious by Design

Education EN ↓ 29 episodes

Curious by Design is a podcast about how things get built, and why they end up the way they do. Every product, city, system, and business is the result of a series of choices. Some intentional. Some accidental. Some brilliant. Some… less so. Hosted by Jason Hardwick, this show explores the thinking behind the work: the history, the tradeoffs, the constraints, and the invisible decisions that shape the world around us. From design and engineering to culture, technology, and everyday systems we take for granted, each episode pulls on a single thread and follows it deeper than expected. This isn’...

Author

Jason Hardwick

Episodes

Why the QWERTY Keyboard Still Exists 02.02.2026 6:49

It’s not alphabetical. It’s not intuitive. And it wasn’t even designed to help humans type better. In this episode of Curious by Design , we explore the strange history of the QWERTY keyboard—a layout created in the 1870s to prevent early typewriters from breaking. What began as a mechanical workaround became a global standard, not because it was the best option, but because everything else grew a...

Why Bathroom Stalls Have Those Awkward Gaps 02.02.2026 11:13

Why would a space meant for privacy be designed to feel so exposed? In this episode of Curious by Design , we explore the uncomfortable history behind American bathroom stalls, and why the gaps, open bottoms, and half-closed doors were never an accident. The modern stall emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when rapidly growing cities were battling disease outbreaks like cholera...

Why the Workweek Is Five Days Long 02.02.2026 10:23

Time feels natural. Constant. Inevitable. But the way we experience time today is almost entirely invented. In this episode of Curious by Design , we explore how time went from something humans observed, sunrise, seasons, cycles, to something we track, schedule, owe, and feel constantly behind on. For most of history, time was local and flexible. An “hour” changed with the seasons. Noon was simply...

Why Things Are the Way They Are : Curious by Design Trailer 30.01.2026 1:22

Every product, city, system, and business around us didn’t just happen. It was designed, by people, under constraints, making tradeoffs. Curious by Design is a podcast about how things get built, and why they end up the way they do. In this short trailer, host Jason Hardwick introduces the idea behind the show: exploring the hidden decisions, historical moments, and design choices that quietly sha...