The problems society faces today are extreme—including climate change, exploitive economic conditions, and a rapidly shifting technological landscape. Amid this disorienting and rapid change, we will need a form of optimistic thinking about how to transform society. 

This issue of PLAT highlights several different approaches, phases, and scales of how change is present in design, from systems-based thinking at a planetary scale to the individual’s perspective of the city. Every step in the design process is represented within this issue, including the identification of a needed transformation, detailed designs that are specific to place, and broad theories of change and development. 

We, as architects, designers, students, professionals, and individuals, ought to engage the world constantly thinking about how we can use the alchemical processes of architecture to transform the spaces in which we live. 

With the following contributions:

The Exchange Anatomy - RaRe Design Lab

Social Urbanism - María Bellalta

Re-Forest - Luciana Varkulja

Confluencing - Hala Nasr

Inter – Infra - Lei Tang

Out Standing in a Field - Nate Ehrlich

Crack Ecology - Kirst Willis & Kathryn Morgan

Songyang Story - DnA_Design & Architecture

Approach - Mariam Issoufou

Autistic Architectural Approach - Troels Steenholdt Heiredal

Hong Kong's Spatial Duality - Mingru Han

The Invisible City - Sharon He, Caitlin Wong, & Simone Cao

An Architectural Kafala - Adrian Fernandez

The Toll of Unlimited Speed - Megan Kimble