Editorial: notes to self

Two years ago, the AR asked architects, critics, teachers, artists and enthusiasts to write a letter to a ‘young architect’. Collected in the AR September 2020 issue, messages varied greatly: Yasmeen Lari asked whether the young architect was ‘enterprising enough to seek a new world order’, while Charles Holland had a very simple request: ‘Don’t listen to old people’s advice.’ This year, we invited young architects to put pen to paper and write a letter to their older selves. The resulting dispatches are filled with reflections on mental health, racism, financial precarity and the climate crisis. But they also try to remain hopeful. The letters are time capsules preserved on page: a mirror to the state of the world and how young architects see their place in it. These young architects are graduating into the world of practice, but their footsteps are tentative.

In this issue’s keynote essay (p6), Resolve Collective write: ‘The idea of “practice” appears to be confined to the sole remit of professionals whose names are followed by mysterious letters’. The promise of building spaces and communities contains multitudes, but as opportunities for young people diminish, it can be difficult to hold on to this insight: that there are many ways of practising architecture. In this issue, we celebrate the young architects who have leapt into practice, in particular those shortlisted for the AR Emerging awards. From international teams committed to social enterprise and creating long-term opportunities for the communities they work with, to those working with pre-extractive methods and materials, the profiled practices offer hope that a new world order is possible for architecture.