GSD Platform 4, edited by Eric Howeler, Assistant Professor of Architecture, is the latest release for the Platform series. Platform 4 represents a selective sampling of the agendas at the GSD during the last academic year, revealing a diverse mixture of projects, research, and events.
Platform 4 attempts to place the reader “at the scene.” On the steps of Piper auditorium when Jacques Herzog declared that, “architecture is like a love affair; it just is.” Or when Peter Eisenman, in conversation with Rafael Moneo, differentiated architects that “have a project” from those that “have a practice.” Platform 4 documents both site and situation at the GSD—it is an institutional index.
While Platform 4 records research trajectories from the past year, it also has the capacity to set agendas for future work. By framing a set of issues and topics, Platform 4 focuses attention towards particular areas of interest, allowing individual work to build on and contribute to a larger body of disciplinary knowledge. In that sense, the themes within this book become projective. They provide frameworks for future inquiry, allowing Platform to become just that—a framework to build upon.
Platform 4 is available for purchase on-site at the Loeb Library and online through Actar publishers.