PLAT 11: Soft

Where do we begin when we start to talk about architecture? Perhaps with an idea for a building: an office tower, a public library, a secluded garden. We could begin with a drawing, the moment an idea becomes defined, or further, with a set of drawings, where rooms and the assemblies of walls, floors, and roofs give a building its shape through hard lines and planar geometry. We could look at how building materials come to fit these lines: where stone is quarried and cut, how sand is mined and annealed to produce glass, or clay pressed and fired into brick. We could begin with the protocols, procedures, and formalities which we use to partition land and begin construction.

In all of these images, we can find hard boundaries and separations– from the conventions of our drawings, to the way we prepare materials, to the conceptual boundaries of the practice: notions of territory, codes of conduct, what is included, and just as importantly, what is not.

What might it mean for architecture if these lines and boundaries were softened?

“Soft” as a quality can evoke many things: materials, light and atmospheres, touch and craft, a fuzzy boundary, a soft-focus image, landscape and ecology, gentleness, reciprocity in relationships. Our provocation for PLAT 11 is to search for softness in architecture, to engage with the ground and atmosphere, to question its mass, its mark, its permanence. Soft is a quality of material things, of touch, of sounds, of sights, of words, of time. PLAT 11: Soft asks,

How often have our efforts to describe the limits of architecture, limited the capacity architects have to enter into relationships with others? What might it mean for architects to speak softly? What does it look like when we redefine the boundaries of buildings, or push back against easy claims of permanence? Could we shift our focus from producing the built environment to caring and attending to it?

PLAT 11: Soft explores these questions, and begins to ask new ones.

Co-Editors: Jane van Velden + Paul DeFazio

Team: Rae Atkinson, Jimmy Bullis, Joseph Hsu, Nathaniel Garone Leazer, Taylor Li, Maggie Martin, Maximillien Lee Chong Lee Shin, + Nicole Yip

With contributions from:

Igor Marjanovic—Dean’s Foreword: Soft Lines 
Irénée Scalbért—Really Good 
Sarah Wigglesworth—Leadership with a Soft Center 
Jane Mah Hutton—In Conversation with Sarah Nichols 
Figure—Practicing Softly 
Jorge Otero Pailos—In Conversation with PLAT 
Robin V. Hueppe—Shattered Dreams, Sleeping Visions 
Gustav Düsing—In Conversation with Dehlia Hannah 
Hélène Frichot—A Soft On for Caring Relationships 
Rafael Beneytez-Durán—Air: A Field of Intense Materiality
Oscar Tuazon—In Conversation with PLAT 
Ellen Lesperance—Velvet Fist 
Dept.—Pruning a Fence, Growing a Grid, Eroding a Monument
SONNENZIMMER—Carrier Shell: Shallow Atmosphere
Soft Agency—Soft Agency
Nathaniel Leazer—Soft Control
Jordan H. Carver—Soft Targets
Ann Hamilton—Between Paper and Cloth
Hilary Sample In Converstion with PLAT
Leyuan Li—Mirror, Mirror On the Wall
Lydia Kallipoliti—Soft Machines
Galo Canizares—In Conversation with PLAT
Frani O’Toole—Universal Design Standards
Departamento Del Distrito—When Models are Systems
Jos Boys—In Conversation with PLAT 
Practice Landscape—Two Projects in Captiva
Janine Antoni & Joey Orr—We Listen With Our Steps, The Land Speaks
DAVIDSON RAFAILIDIS—Small Shack, Soft Eyes
Elizabeth Bynum Sorrell—Noise, Nightclubs, and Neighbors
LANZA Atelier—A Table for Hundreds
Harish Krishnamoorthy—Post-Mortem Wanderings
Yejin Stefany Lee—In Conversation with PLAT
Paul DeFazio + Jane van Velden—Editor's Conversation

256 pages, published Fall 2022.

If you encounter any issues during checkout, please email us: editor@platjournal.com.