In an “Interview on Interviews,” Andrés Jaque cites Harold Garfinkel’s theory of Ethnomethodology, which describes society as the product of a series of improvised social interactions – a method that places the individual as an actor at the center of social reality. This rhetoric of performance appears throughout this issue to describe the construction and […]

Across many contributions to this first issue, I’ve been struck by authors’ interests in negotiating the combined pursuits of knowledge generation and the production of spectacle. I believe this signals a shift in the way architects regard research practice today, and hope to open up discussion around this point. I’d like to start by comparing […]

What is the economic context of the research projects discussed in this issue? In “Task Environment,” Arindam Dutta has demonstrated a shift in architectural research from a state-funded research-industrial-academic complex to ‘creative economy’ funding structures dominant today. While some projects shown in this isssue are rooted in the legacy of military and industrial interests (see […]

Welcome to our first round of discussions for ARPA Journal. This is a message-board style discussion open to all contributors and readers. We call this a debate because we hope to recognize diverse, contending approaches to applied research in architecture. We are dedicated to the idea that an open investigation of unique positions can lead […]