“We need to reimagine…”, “we need to reimagine…”. How many times have we heard these 4 words in the last 1000 zoom sessions?

From coerced co-habitation to broken logistic flows, this locked-down world is neck-deep in spatial issues. Then why are architects, masters of spatial intelligence, left screaming their solutions underwater? In advertising they say: “The worst thing is doing the right thing and have nobody notice that you did it”. So enough with our imagination: we’ve imagined enough visions for enough futures. As good as they may be, our solutions are voiceless.

Credibility is a long process of mutual trust, and we must start by cleaning out our closet. In the attempt to protect the constituency, architects withdrew instinctively in identity: we grew fonder of our language and traditions, manias and phobias, elevating them to unquestionable dogmas; untested assumptions became the criterion to define who belongs to the pack. But little interest was ever dedicated to a self-critical analysis of our very own routines, operations, habits. Our defaults. But really: why another competition? Why another magazine? Why another all-nighter? Instead of balancing risk with return, we kept dispersing vital energies in efforts that would never pay off.

For one last time, let’s not waste this crisis and dig openly into our defaults. To debunk them, often all it takes is a: “Yes, but why?” The aftermath of the pandemic will result in another long global transition, and architects cannot afford to waste time feeding golden calves. Before we operate, this time we must change the default settings.

For the issue “Bye Default” Volume magazine invited rebel contributors to question, ridicule, hack the paradoxical nature of our default operations, proposing alternatives against the inevitable.

With contributions by: Reinier de Graaf, Brendan Cormier, Jonathan Foote, Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi, Rem Koolhaas, Jacques Herzog, Peripheral Visions, Gilles Retsin, Molly Wright Steenson, Francesco Garutti, Nonprofessionals, Ole Bouman, Unfolding Pavilion, n’UNDO, Stephan Petermann.

Volume Talks in conversation with: Fabrizio Gallanti, Marina Otero Verzier, Nick Axel, Sumayya Vally, Andreas Rumpfhuber, Andrea Bagnato, dpr-barcelona, Jonas Staal, Peggy Deamer, Blanca Pujals, Mollie Claypool, Aristide Antonas.

“We need to reimagine…”, “we need to reimagine…”. How many times have we heard these 4 words in the last 1000 zoom sessions?

From coerced co-habitation to broken logistic flows, this locked-down world is neck-deep in spatial issues. Then why are architects, masters of spatial intelligence, left screaming their solutions underwater? In advertising they say: “The worst thing is doing the right thing and have nobody notice that you did it”. So enough with our imagination: we’ve imagined enough visions for enough futures. As good as they may be, our solutions are voiceless.

Credibility is a long process of mutual trust, and we must start by cleaning out our closet. In the attempt to protect the constituency, architects withdrew instinctively in identity: we grew fonder of our language and traditions, manias and phobias, elevating them to unquestionable dogmas; untested assumptions became the criterion to define who belongs to the pack. But little interest was ever dedicated to a self-critical analysis of our very own routines, operations, habits. Our defaults. But really: why another competition? Why another magazine? Why another all-nighter? Instead of balancing risk with return, we kept dispersing vital energies in efforts that would never pay off.

For one last time, let’s not waste this crisis and dig openly into our defaults. To debunk them, often all it takes is a: “Yes, but why?” The aftermath of the pandemic will result in another long global transition, and architects cannot afford to waste time feeding golden calves. Before we operate, this time we must change the default settings.

For the issue “Bye Default” Volume magazine invited rebel contributors to question, ridicule, hack the paradoxical nature of our default operations, proposing alternatives against the inevitable.

With contributions by: Reinier de Graaf, Brendan Cormier, Jonathan Foote, Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi, Rem Koolhaas, Jacques Herzog, Peripheral Visions, Gilles Retsin, Molly Wright Steenson, Francesco Garutti, Nonprofessionals, Ole Bouman, Unfolding Pavilion, n’UNDO, Stephan Petermann.

Volume Talks in conversation with: Fabrizio Gallanti, Marina Otero Verzier, Nick Axel, Sumayya Vally, Andreas Rumpfhuber, Andrea Bagnato, dpr-barcelona, Jonas Staal, Peggy Deamer, Blanca Pujals, Mollie Claypool, Aristide Antonas.