We had second thoughts about SHARING. We were tempted by more than a few edgier themes: Platform, Exigent Extraction, Hard Softwares, Smart, and so on. Nevertheless, we stuck to our guns and decided to dissect the topic by casting a wide net. As far as we can tell the nature of contemporary sharing started to become contested roughly a decade ago, proceeds today with fervor, and continues to benefit from a direct engagement with architecture and vice versa.

The cover of this issue was created by Amsterdam-based The Rodina and attempts to convey the dangerously cute nature of sharing. Sometimes you want to pet it, but at any moment it might bite you. We justified the breadth of this issue by aiming to provide you, the reader, with many ideas, ultimately allowing you to decide what you think of sharing. Yet, we have no illusions of being impartial arbiters of this discourse. We come with a significant amount of biases, including believing that thinking deeply requires continually adapting responses and techniques. As such, we sought out formats like the interview, which we liked for its ability to generate content rapidly, thus helping us to take the pulse of the current state of affairs.

Constructing a new definition of sharing requires a desire to see things as they have yet to be seen. Several pieces within this journal deal with the fundamental shifts of the image itself, arguing that old canon may be increasingly challenged by the technology of contemporary making. Other pieces follow in a tradition of attempting to ground the internet and the digital in tangible spatial practices: dock-less bike share, DIY internet receptors and transmitters, and the furniture and wares of everyday life.

The journal is interdisciplinary, which we view as inevitable more than intentional, and we hope architects and non-architects alike will enjoy the ensuing pages. Five loose clusters exist in this issue and attempt to establish a general framework for understanding emergent themes. Three of them, “Sharing with Friends,” “The Ether in the Everyday,” and “Imaging the Image,” were already alluded to. The other two clusters are titled “Building Sharing” and “Make it Macro” and speak to how architects are manifesting sharing in their projects and how notions of sharing play out at a macro scale, respectively. If James Scott helped us see like a state, then Guillermo Fernández-Abascal and Urtzi Grau help us see like a car, while Ali Fard takes a deep dive into Amazon’s HQ2 competition and Charles Weak lends a new perspective on transparency.

Many of the contributors included their Instagram handles in their bios, which was a deliberate effort on our part to manifest today’s shifting landscape of production and reproduction, digital and otherwise, in the process of architectural publishing itself. Thus, the print medium, including this SHARING issue, is valuable insofar as it enriches our inevitably digital lives and generates conversation that transcends these pages, and perhaps even our phones.

Editors-in-Chief: Francis Aguillard & Samantha Schuermann

Managing Editor: Mona Elamin

With contributions from Caroline Acheatel, Laura Salazar Altobelli, Caio Barboza,@ashleymbigham, Emma Benintende, @scaleful, Aron Chang, Josh Conrad, @rodrubq, @p_trixiye,@phillipdenny, @_fastSlim, @aliffard, Guillermo Fernández-Abascal, @samtous, Urtzi Grau, @thalamka, Jacqueline Hall, Munjer Hashim, @erikherrmann, Sarah Hirschman, André Paul Jáuregui, @aliroseisuppose, Andrew Kovacs, @ohyun.kwon, @jeff.kruth, @taleliu, @brendilw, @piergianna, Forrest Meggers, @ngmeister, @davis.s.owen, @micahpiven, Ioana Petkova, Jessica Reynolds, Ryan Roark, @danjoroche, @sarod718, @everyverything, Sofia Blanco Santos, @aschifani, Sebastian Schmidt, @giddss, Rafi Segal, @j_self, @schmoron13, @pink__tank, @iffysoso, Alexandra Stokes, @tjsuomala, @t_e_a_m_b, @lexitsien, Mark Wasiuta, @charles_weak, @benjamin_wells, Wanqing Wong, & Nitzan Zilberman.

Published Fall 2018.