Architecture isn’t normal. We take for a given that architecture has to operate the way it already does — but it doesn’t. What appears as natural is in fact constructed, and has mutated dramatically through time. “Architecture,” that is, refers not just to the practice of building but also to a set of institutionalized social and labor relations, which are often misogynistic, racist, corrupt, and oppressive. For far too long, we’ve accepted workplaces where women are mistreated, harassed, assaulted. We’ve accepted the exclusion of people of color from our ranks and as our clients. We’ve accepted exploitation of workers and cyclical systems of abuse. We’ve accepted as the ideal of our profession an image of the architect—and the client—that is white, that is cis male, that is straight, that is able bodied, that is rich. We have to, urgently, denormalize these norms of the architectural profession and discipline.

While architecture may not be normal, it does normalize. It transforms concepts into reality. From the Vitruvian man to Le Corbusier’s Modulor, an imagined, ideal human subject has defined the history of Western architecture. When we build, we build for him. But this subject—despite claims to the contrary—is far from a universal or a given. We create him as we design for him. When we unthinkingly replicate design standards, we all too often construct a world for only a select few. Even the most seemingly-innocuous things we design—from bathroom fixtures to thresholds—can act to exclude certain bodies from the built environment. Our presumptions are political.

Meanwhile, increasingly over the course of the past few decades, architecture has become a form of management: of people and of flows of capital. Its primary function is to conform the city to the demands of the market, to make the city run more smoothly and to eliminate disruption. Its goal has become to imagine new shapes rather than new ways of living. The capacity for architecture to critique, to change things, to construct alternatives, has been largely forgotten — dismissed as “mere” utopianism. The status quo reigns supreme. But it doesn’t have to.

In Normal, the third issue of Archinect’s quarterly print publication Ed, a wide-range of contributors will tackle the existing norms of architecture in order to suggest new ways forward. The normalizing function of architecture will be put on trial, and the normal will be flipped on its head.

Archinect is accepting written submissions of around 1500-2000 (max.) words (Chicago-style citation), as well as visual or multimedia projects, from now until August 4, 2018 at 12:00 EST. Images, if included, should be 300dpi. Submit all materials to nicholas@archinect.com.

New to Ed? Grab a copy of issue 1 and 2 here!