If you have a taste for stories that span the spectrum of airport carpeting fanboys to those with more historical significance such as the story here, I cannot recommend the 99% invisible podcast enough.
To list a couple others off the top of my head: SF's public stairways, NYC's cow tunnels, sound design for televised sports, Plimsoll lines, elevator brakes, architecture for deaf people.
I don't know if I'd call it a "spectrum" so much as a "crazy pile of everything design related." Great show.
I don't know if I'd call it a "spectrum" so much as a "crazy pile of everything design related." Great show.