I felt exile was now my default condition. I would always be an outsider, not only in my own country (as a woman and liberal) but also in the UK and later in France, my eventual home. I was forced to construct an imaginary country for myself.

Just as there are no singular evils, there is no correct form of dissent. Activism is advocating, rioting, marching, looting, blockading, boycotting, sanctioning, sabotaging, and divesting, among many other things. Nothing changes without pressure.

No friction, no movement.

A box is a blob with corners. It is typologically a close relative to a building (even when the comparison might be derogative), both have robust exteriors and a tendency to dark mysterious interiors. But buildings do not arrive unexpectedly in the post with a return to sender request, as this one did.

On April 30, join forA editors alongside Bijoy Jain, Elke Krasny, and Sanford Kwinter in Vienna for Forum #2, a conversation that will draw on contributions related to forA Issue #0 while seeking to address pressing issues that center around notions of friction with regard to our present moment.

If I had a dollar for every time somebody in my career, both as a student and as an educator, said to me, “Is that architecture?” I could have retired 25 years ago, very rich. From the get-go there’s been an obsession about what is and what isn’t architecture. That obsession, I think, has really curtailed the tools we use.

Writing, drawing, speaking, performing, listening… the means of communication and representation are one and the same. How we draw/think/make/see is profoundly tied to what we draw/think/make and see: can we draw differently? Can we teach ourselves to see differently?

A large mixed city is a space where actors from different worlds can have an encounter for which there are no established rules of engagement.

It’s Monday 5am and Sean’s alarm rings. He gets ready for his three-kilometer run, a routine which consists of nine laps around the Thomas More Edible Garden on the Barbican Estate. Shower water is only available every two days.

The most exciting urban experiences are those in which the generic and the particular (either as geometry or situation) are contrasted. For example, arriving in a new city by subway if possible, so as to not spoil the surprise.