Over the course of almost 18 years of publishing Dwell, we’ve worked with a ton of creative people—photographers, urbanists, designers, writers, landscapers, professors, illustrators, architects, builders, and more. Sometimes a rare bird comes along who is skilled in not just one arena but many. Dan Maginn is one of these people. Years ago we recognized Dan’s gift for creating buildings—he’s an architect with more than 25 years’ experience and a principal at DRAW in Kansas City—as well as his talent for communication. You see, Dan possesses the uncommon ability to distill the details of his day job—clients, codes, contractors—into understandable, pleasurable English. His style is neither stupefyingly dull nor excessively grandiose, but accessible and easy.

Over the years, he has contributed a number of informative, humorous articles to Dwell on everything from smart tech to table saws. Now, I’m happy to announce, Dan will be hosting Dwell’s first-ever podcast, RM-3.

Each episode of RM-3 will center on a single raw material, investigating three uses for it from three perspectives. In roughly 30 minutes, Dan will detail how influential architects and designers take the material in question from its most elemental form—sand, rock, a tree—and shape it into our belongings, homes, and cities. The first episode explores zinc, a mineral that is selfless in its in its ability to save steel and iron from rust and is found in everything from pennies to airplanes to people. We hope you listen in!

The first podcast will be available to download from iTunes on August 1, or you can listen below.