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Publication Open Access Foreword(2024-12-31) Samuel, FloraPublication Open Access Front Matter(2024-12-31) Frayne, Nicholas; Chow, JerryPublication Open Access Between Ship and Sea and Shore: Spatial Practices from the Black Pacific(2024-12-31) Collins, Caroline Imani; Yang, K. WayneThis article describes Black spatial practices of Black mariners involved with merchant and colonial activities in the Pacific during the Age of Sail and shortly thereafter. Building from a Black geographies framework we map a critical geography, which we summarize as the Black ship, the Black sea, and the Black shore. This analysis highlights how many of these mariners deployed spatial knowledges to turn spaces of seeming enclosure into vehicles of agency and opportunity. We then close with a provocation, considering whether a critical architecture can make transparent the sometimes colluding, sometimes colliding, often contradictory authorities over Black life.Publication Open Access Colonial Persistence(2024-12-31) Henni, SamiaPublication Open Access Climate Migration and Postcolonial Perspectives: Enclosure, Territory, and Rights(2024-12-31) Shoshan, MalkitPublication Open Access Forwards: In Conversation with the Editors(2024-12-31) Chow, Jerry; Frayne, NicholasPublication Open Access Apostrophe Ess: Meditations on Writing and Editing during a Genocide(2024-12-31) Saloojee, OzayrThis text is a mediation on architectural writing and editing during genocide, structured as a parallel essay — one in the main text, and another in the footnotes — it is an attempted combination of manifesto, elegy, declaration, and invitation. Grounded in the idea that writing is a form of critical, spatial practice, the text reflects on Achille Mbembe’s notion of disenclosure as a pry-bar to wedge open a tender and direct engagement with architecture’s complicity in the ongoing erasure of Palestinian lifeworlds.Publication Open Access 'Absolute Beginners': The Achievement Society and the Disenclosure of the Architectural Profession(2024-12-31) Tan, Joshua‘Absolute Beginners’ applies Byung-Chul Han’s theory of the ‘achievement society’ to contemporary architectural practice, where the valorisation of productivity has fostered a culture of auto-exploitation and burnout. Drawing parallels between Han’s critique and architecture’s overemphasis on work, competitions, and unpaid labour, the article highlights the profession’s complicity in perpetuating systemic inequities. Combining Han’s call for a contemplative life with Manfredo Tafuri’s critique of the discipline, it argues for collective resistance through labour organization and a re-engagement with history. The disenclosure of architecture requires the architect to acquire both self-awareness and the capacity for action.Publication Open Access In Conversation with Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi(2024-12-31) Siddiqi, Anooradha IyerPublication Open Access Edible Empires: Redesigning Power, Place, and Resilience in the US Food System(2024-12-31) McElderry, JustinThis paper critiques the structural inequalities in the US food system, shaped by short-sightedness, centralisation, and monocultural practices. It explores how architects and urban planners can redefine food infrastructure by adopting decolonial frameworks rooted in equity and sustainability. Drawing on theories by Jean-Luc Nancy and Achille Mbembe, the research provides case studies and adaptive solutions to transform foodscapes into resilient, community-driven systems. The work emphasizes a shift from profit-centric to justice-oriented models, bridging design innovation with long-term ecological and cultural stewardship. Finally, it calls for an expanded definition of architectural practice that prioritises systems change and responds to the unique ecological, cultural, and economic demands of a context.Publication Open Access Insistence(2024-12-31) Cornelius, ChrisPublication Open Access Colophon(2024-12-31) Chow, Jerry; Frayne, NicholasPublication Open Access Predators and Cannibals: The Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro(2024-12-31) Spiro, AnnettePublication Open Access Of Soil and Stone(2024-12-31) Manthripragada, AjayThe article outlines the processes of formation and extraction of laterite, an earthen material found in various tropical climates and used for centuries in buildings. It questions the contemporary use of laterite in the construction industry of the Malabar Coast of India.Publication Open Access Shelter Disenclosed(2024-12-31) Nakarado, ChristianThe buildings that once housed the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School in Michigan have today begun to turn to ruin. Their boundaries have begun to fall apart. Many of their oppressive spaces are no longer enclosed. While the deterioration of building envelopes is typically cause for repair and maintenance, in this case the building enclosures separated much more than just interior from exterior, and their opening up means a reconnection of people, culture, and land that were long held apart. Such an open view of the envelope is essential to our architectural future.Publication Open Access Worship at the Margins: On Violence, Enclosures, and the Reformed Church of Paris (1555–1562)(2024-12-31) Joashi, TomThis essay traces the brief history of the Reformed Church of Paris through the socio-spatial experiences of its members. Using Oren Yiftachel’s concept of ‘gray space’ as an analytical framework, it examines how the community navigated marginalization and violent persecution under Catholic urban dominance. The essay highlights key locations described in contemporary Protestant literature, including prison cells, private homes, and the grassy Parisian suburbs. It is argued that though the Protestant community was ultimately unable to overcome their enclosures, they found ways to reinterpret their marginalization nonetheless, drawing strength and agency from their constrained circumstances.Publication Open Access Disenclosing the Mare Clausum: Critical Spatial Practices on the Sea(2024-12-31) Zhang, YifeiThe essay explores the concept of ‘disenclosure’, a spatial and philosophical idea derived from Jean-Luc Nancy, and its relevance to maritime thought and practice. It contrasts the historical legal frameworks of Mare Liberum (open sea) and Mare Clausum (closed sea), theorised respectively by Hugo Grotius and John Selden. The essay examines contemporary maritime interventions — like Jason deCaires Taylor’s underwater sculptures, Forensic Architecture’s migrant investigations, and Women on Waves’ abortion rights campaigns — that challenge spatial boundaries, reframe oceanic legality, and create spaces of possibility. These acts move beyond the mere metaphoric understanding of space while exemplifying the potential of ‘disenclosure’ to foster critical spatial practices at sea.Publication Open Access A Landscape, a Ledge, and a Shadow(2024-12-31) Khan, GhaniaThis paper is concerned with a creative practice that explores the experience of sacred space in architectural drawings. The drawings [re]present a spatial intervention where the sacred is experienced in the most ordinary of architectural gestures located amidst a juniper forest in Balochistan, Pakistan. The drawing practice that is central to this exploration, consists of a phenomenological enquiry, grounded in Ibn Arabi’s philosophy of the world as God’s shadow. This paper is a ‘disenclosure’ of our constant attempts to render every physical detail into a linear result of spaces as products to be seen. The unfolding research practice offers a discussion on ways of seeing the baatin, in physical forms — the zaahir. The drawings that emerge from this study critique conventional methods of architectural representation and call for a depth to become a part of how we visualise space in architectural practice and pedagogy.Publication Open Access Fixing Lines on a Drifting Coast: Architectural Crystals of Destin, Florida(2024-12-31) Tang, StephanieIn 2003, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection proposed a beach renourishment project to add 75 feet of public beachfront to a 6.9-mile stretch of hurricane-eroded coastline. Six property owners filed suit for unconstitutional taking of their littoral (beachfront) rights. In the US Supreme Court case that followed, hard-measured lines and legal definitions which attempt to assign fixity to dynamic environments became muddied. A close reading of the legal case is accompanied by critiques of architecture’s crystalline complicity with fixed lines of property law and subsequent land transformations, contemplating how architecture might instead embrace drifting enclosures.Publication Open Access In Conversation with Yasmeen Lari(2024-12-31) Lari, YasmeenIn this wide-ranging conversation, Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari discusses her vision for transforming architectural practice to address contemporary global challenges. She articulates a framework of ‘three Ds’ — decarbonisation, decolonisation, and democratisation — as essential principles for reforming architecture. Lari advocates for moving beyond traditional client-centred practice towards an entrepreneurial and activist approach that empowers communities and addresses urgent social needs. Drawing from her experience transitioning from conventional architectural practice to humanitarian work following Pakistan’s 2005 earthquake, she demonstrates how architectural expertise can be reimagined to create zero-carbon, zero-waste, and zero-charity solutions for disaster-affected communities. The interview explores how vernacular heritage and local knowledge can inform climate-resilient design, while challenging the profession to abandon high-carbon materials and embrace co-design approaches. Throughout, Lari emphasises the need for architects to take initiative in addressing social injustice and environmental challenges rather than waiting for commissions, calling for a fundamental shift in how architectural expertise is deployed in service of communities most impacted by climate change and economic inequality.