Call for Submissions

The spaces that bind our buildings are no less critical to community, commerce or culture than the buildings themselves. Between, around, over and under our shelters is a web of infrastructure that connects us and composes the city as an organism–a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Yet, like the connective tissue of the human body, it is often taken for granted; allowed to soften, atrophy and decay. We see this not only in infrastructure degradation, but through the disappearance of human-scaled space, particularly in our streets. We see this in the cancerous spread of placeless suburbanism and highly-engineered, poorly-humanized streets.

Where have all the architects gone? This profession has a rich tradition of leadership in the shaping of infrastructure, public space and the city as a system. Yet that tradition has been yielded in the presence of greater concern for, and profits from, the automobile and the lawn, at incalculable expense.

For a profession which claims vision as a trademark, the provisional and the disintegrated ought not permanently replace the comprehensive and the synergistic. The realm of the architect must not end at the curtain wall. In fact, the rest of the city begs for leadership and thoughtful design. Urbanism absent architects exacerbates the symptoms of a failing design experiment, which is unacceptable when we live in that very experiment.

Thus, the AIAS is seeking your commentary on the state of our cities’ connective tissue and your designs to reclaim and revive these tissues. We will publish the efforts of designers to recover the spaces (physical, philosophical and political) that bind us. Please communicate with Editor-in-Chief Jacob Day prior to submitting hard copies of work.

The deadline is August 1, 2008. Please send submissions and questions to crit@aias.org.