THE PLAN Journal (TPJ) is an open, inclusive, non-ideological and independent platform, founded on an ongoing praxis of criticality. The journal aims at disseminating and promoting innovative, thought-provoking and relevant research, studies and criticism in architecture, design and urbanism. In addition, the TPJ wants to enrich the dialog between research and the professional fields, in order to encourage both applicable new knowledge and intellectually driven and locally relevant modes of practice. With an overarching concern for recognizing quality research, the criteria for selecting contributions will be: innovation, clarity of purpose and method, and the potential transformational impact on disciplinary fields or the broader socio-cultural context.
Latest Articles
Open Access
CRITICISM
Polemic
The Monstrous Hybrids in Our Midst. Jane Jacobs and the Dark Age Ahead
VOLUME 10/2025 - Issue 1 , Pages: 1 - 11 published: 2025-06-10We are honored to receive, and proudly publish, Tom Fisher’s acceptance speech for his 2025 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion award. [MS]
ABSTRACT - The political and social disruptions that often follow pandemics have accelerated many countries, including the United States, toward what Jane Jacobs described in her last book, entitled Dark Age Ahead (2004). This essay looks at Jacobs’ description of the characteristics of cultures that fall into a dark age and how we can see signs of them arising around the world today. Following that analysis, this essay explores what Jacobs calls the “five pillars” that stand against such cultural collapse and how the architecture and design community can help reinforce those pillars.
Subscribers only
LANDSCAPE URBANISM
Article
Knowledge Infrastructure for Coastal Infrastructure: The Y02A Patent Initiative and Site-Based Climate Adaption Strategies
VOLUME 10/2025 - Issue 1 , Pages: 1 - 25 published: 2025-06-11Innovation in climate adaptation and resilience practices is among the most critical issues in architecture, design, and planning. This essay explores how coastal adaptation and resilience planning processes may be informed by the Y02A patent classification scheme to design advanced forms of site-specific coastal infrastructure. The Y02A scheme covers the “technologies for adaptation to climate change,” organizing coastal, riverine, and urban climate adaptation innovations into distinct sub-classes, with the aim of building technical capacity and coordinating discovery in related sectors. The mechanisms and processes through which these novel technologies are invented, tested, translated, and implemented within environmental design and planning praxis remain largely unknown, creating opportunities for new methods of knowledge exchange to be developed. To address the unique, and potentially transformative relationship, important aspects of the Y02A classification scheme are introduced in conjunction with a case study analysis from 2017/18 Resilience by Design Bay Area Challenge in California, during which the Common Ground Team utilized patent innovation studies to conceptualize site-based adaptation and resilience strategies for the San Pablo Baylands.
Featured Articles
Open Access
Position Paper
AI Time, Timing, and Timelessness
VOLUME 8/2023 - Issue 2 , Pages: 207 - 213 published: 2024-01-12 Open Access
Position Paper
The Right to Housing: A Holistic Perspective. From Concept to Advocacy, Policy, and Practice
VOLUME 7/2022 - Issue 2 [The Right to Housing], Pages: 269 - 267 published: 2023-01-10 Open Access
CROSS-DISCIPLINARY STUDIES
Opinion
Baukultur in a Cybernetic Age: A Conversation
VOLUME 6/2021 - Issue 1 , Pages: 7 - 28 published: 2021-05-14We received and we gladly publish this conversation among distinguished theorists and scholars on an important topic, also aligned with the cross-disciplinary mission of our journal. [MS]
ABSTRACT - The article offers a multi-author conversation charting the future of architecture in light of the apparent tension between Baukultur, which combines the culture of building and the building of this culture, and the rapid changes brought about by digital technology, embracing cybernetics and artificial intelligence. The article builds on a discussion of Baukultur to debate in what sense buildings are “machines for living in,” then examines neuromorphic architecture wherein cybernetic mechanisms help buildings sense the needs of their occupants. It closes with an example of a building complex, Kampung Admiralty, that combines cybernetic opportunities with a pioneering approach to building “community and biophilia” into our cities. This article interleaves an abridged version of Michael Arbib’s (2019) article “Baukultur in a Cybernetic Age,” 1 with extensive comments by the co-authors.
Open Access
Position Paper
Gender Matters. The Grand Architectural Revolution
VOLUME 4/2019 - Issue 2 [GENDER MATTERS], Pages: 273 - 279 published: 2020-02-07 Subscribers only
CRITICISM
Essay
Japanese Architecture Returns to Nature: Sou Fujimoto in Context
VOLUME 7/2022 - Issue 1 , Pages: 7 - 36 published: 2022-05-16We received and we gladly publish a contribution by distinguished author Prof. Botond Bognar. [MS]
ABSTRACT - The essay introduces the development of Sou Fujimoto’s architecture as it has been influenced by various sources and experiences leading to his recently completed and highly recognized major project, the House of Hungarian Music in Budapest. Among these influences the contemporary economic and political conditions in Japan and beyond, as well as the nature-inspired work of prominent Japanese designers are discussed. Touching upon the seminal work by Tadao Ando and Toyo Ito, the essay also highlights the contrasts and occasional similarities between the so-called “White School” and “Red School” in contemporary Japanese architecture, in referencing nature as the primary source of their designs. Today, these “schools” are best represented, respectively, by the activities of SANAA and Kengo Kuma. Although Fujimoto’s architecture is clearly derivative and part of the radically minimalist White School, the House of Hungarian Music reveals an intimacy and richness
in articulating its relationship to the surrounding natural environment, which quality, if perhaps momentarily, points beyond the minimalism of the “Whites.”
