Materia Arquitectura magazine is calling for submissions for its second issue of 2022: Negation. Editors Federico Ortiz and Ushma Thakrar invite the submission of articles that reflect the current state of the discipline, preferably based on academic research.
As our society becomes increasingly polarized, our identities, stances, and practices seem to be defined more and more by negation—by what we refuse, how we disengage, and when we choose not to participate. For many, the last few years have been marked by a refusal to work in proximity to others, to accept lockdowns, curfews, masking, and vaccinations. Yet, even before COVID-19, individual acts of negation were already common: everything from the use of single-use plastics and fast fashion to social media and browser cookies. Architects are not exempt from this mode of self-definition; in recent years, some have publicly announced the suspension of projects in Russia (1), refused commissions to design prisons (2), and opposed the working and material conditions that have long been the norm in the profession (3).
