At a moment when independent publications are under existential threat, it has perhaps never been more urgent to reflect on criticism in architecture. In a fast-evolving and ever-changing media landscape, architecture criticism is not confined to written words. This issue considers criticism as a conversation around a table, as collecting, assembling, cutting, editing, layering, drawing, redrawing, writing, making, and talking. We turn our gaze to what is included and excluded from this table, examining the colonial and capitalist forces at work

We have witnessed the world turn inward. As streets emptied, schools, bars, restaurants closed and entire countries shut off, we have been sucked inside. With staying in no longer a choice, we are forced to embark on reconsidering the space of the home under new conditions. This issue interrogates that which constitutes the interior, its furniture, linings, portals to outside, and how our bodies sink into and mediate these landscapes

As the climate crisis has progressively deepened, the question has been raised of what it would possibly take to place brakes on the colossal, surging machine of global travel. While this issue was originally planned to coincide with the opening of the Venice Biennale, it was instead put to press from home. We consider travel from a sudden distance, both as deeply personal, as a means of escape, and in its role as a footing in local economies worldwide

As the dark of the night is progressively hedged out by 24/7 cities and light technology, political futures for many around the world nevertheless seem increasingly overcast, the dark cloud of the climate crisis looming menacing over all. But life in the shadows can be subversive if marginal, and in a culture of ever-increasing surveillance, these unseen pockets might become the last bastion of resistance