PLAT 9.5: Leave Space is presented digitally on our website for free. Use this page to purchase a copy of the promotional poster. The poster is double-sided and measures approximately 16.5” x 10.5”. Update: posters are sold out.

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Searching for a response to our last theme, Commit, we ran into something of a roadblock. Any attempt to take a stance—even a stance of doing nothing—can be wrapped up into this act of commitment posed as some kind of totalizing ethos. There is no space even to respond.

So, in part we respond to this act of encompassing all attempts at action and inaction alike, and in part we respond to the term itself. PLAT 9.5: Leave Space questions the idea of the architect as one who always knows what’s best. It promotes humbleness and asks if architects might take a step back rather than always seeking out the foreground. It seeks the creative potential in the inevitable distance between architect and architecture. A building results from a complex interaction between forces at different scales, from socio-political conditions to community development initiatives, from the involvement of non-humans to the relationships between architects, engineers, and laborers.

But we do not wish to be prescriptive. We think of Leave Space less as a theme to be upheld and more as an entry point, and we’ve set up the issue as a platform for raising questions without imposing answers. Each piece is in an interview format, bringing in different voices from students to scholars and practitioners. The contributors all had a say in what their interview would be about and were free to make what they would of the issue’s title. As a result, each piece has a unique ethos—something in between the contributors’ thoughts and the interviewers' curiosity—to speculate on what it means when we Leave Space.

Editors-in-Chief: Jimmy Bullis and Pouya Khadem
Managing Editor: Jane Van Velden
Design Director: Adam Berman
Development Director: Elina Chen
Editing Director: Harish Krishnamoorthy
Graphic Design: Adam Berman, Jane Van Velden
Poster Design: Jane Van Velden
Website: Adam Berman and Yangtian Yan
Social Media Director: Sebastián López Cardozo
Editors: Rae Atkinson, Estefania Barajas, Adam Berman, Lindsey Chambers, Xinyu Chen, Anna Cook, Paul DeFazio, Helene De Mello, Joseph Hsu, Harish Krishnamoorthy, Nathaniel Leazer, Kim McGlone, Lauren Philips, Jane Van Velden, Rebecca Weeks

Many thanks to Rice Architecture staff, faculty, students, and contributors whose support made this issue possible.