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Places Journal

@placesjournal.bsky.social
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Architecture, landscape, urbanism. Independent nonprofit public scholarship on the built environment. Free & accessible to all. Read: placesjournal.org Sign up: placesjournal.org/newsletter Donate: placesjournal.org/donate

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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 5h
If you visit our website between today and Saturday October 17, you may see this pop-up window. It’s not an ad; it’s not a paywall. We hope you’ll take a moment to pause and read, and to consider the growing importance of repair to our cultures and economies, our ecosystems and ecologies.
Saturday October 17th is International Repair Day

This week hundreds of events will bring people together to celebrate the power and promise of repair.

Repair thinking has long animated this journal. From Shannon Mattern’s influential “Maintenance and Care,” to our series Repair Manual, to our narrative survey Field Notes: Repair, Places authors have grappled with the necessity — and, sometimes, impossibility — of repairing our built environment.

We hope you’ll read these timely essays, and even participate in a repair-related event near you.

— Places Editors
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 22h
Ten books. Ten capsule reviews by esteemed critics in the fields of architecture, landscape, and urbanism. Don't miss our latest Bookshelf roundup, which you can browse in this thread or read in full at placesjournal.org
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 22h
In his review of Izzy Kornblatt's book on the photographic work of Denise Scott Brown, Hugh Campbell remarks on the pleasures of its open-ended compendiousness. "It is arguably the very lack of editorial direction which gives this book its unrestrained and generous quality," he writes.
placesjournal.org
Bookshelf: Fall 2026 | Book Reviews in Places Journal
Recent books on 'ungrounding' in Palestine, cinematic cities, urban playgrounds, disabled infrastructure, pressed flowers, and more.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Jaffer Kolb reviews INSURGENT PLAY by Duncan McDuie-Ra, a "slim and sincere book" that is perhaps itself too disciplined: "When scholars name the informal and explain the radical, they risk creating ever wider rifts between what is regulated and what is anarchic."
placesjournal.org
Bookshelf: Fall 2026 | Book Reviews in Places Journal
Recent books on 'ungrounding' in Palestine, cinematic cities, urban playgrounds, disabled infrastructure, pressed flowers, and more.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Deepa Ramaswamy reviews THE HOMEGROWN CITY by Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava: "These essays are informed by political theory and history, but they shine when the light falls on the authors’ own experiences and intimate exchanges in the cities where they have worked." (@versobooks.bsky.social)
placesjournal.org
Bookshelf: Fall 2026 | Book Reviews in Places Journal
Recent books on 'ungrounding' in Palestine, cinematic cities, urban playgrounds, disabled infrastructure, pressed flowers, and more.
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University of Pittsburgh Press @upittpress.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
"This deeply researched book on the spatialization of Fordist industrial practices in the second industrial revolution in the United States is long overdue." Terrific review of Fordism and the City by Jay Cephas in @placesjournal.bsky.social! placesjournal.org/article/book...
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Michael Schaub @michaelschaub.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
It was an honor to get to review Mark Lamster's book about Dallas architecture, "Welcome to Paradise City," for @placesjournal.bsky.social: placesjournal.org/article/book...
placesjournal.org
Bookshelf: Fall 2026 | Book Reviews in Places Journal
Recent books on 'ungrounding' in Palestine, cinematic cities, urban playgrounds, disabled infrastructure, pressed flowers, and more.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Mark Lamster's WELCOME TO PARADOX CITY is "a portrait of a city that looms large in the American imagination," writes @michaelschaub.bsky.social. "Dallas is a tricky subject and rewards close attention. This book is as approachable as a guidebook but immeasurably richer." (@deepvellum.bsky.social)
placesjournal.org
Bookshelf: Fall 2026 | Book Reviews in Places Journal
Recent books on 'ungrounding' in Palestine, cinematic cities, urban playgrounds, disabled infrastructure, pressed flowers, and more.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
@malini.bsky.social reviews THE DIVIDED CITY by architect and media scholar Amy Murphy: "Attentive to the entanglements between place and moving image, Murphy 'cross-maps' pivotal moments in the history of 20th century urbanism with their representation on screen." (@illinoispress.bsky.social)
placesjournal.org
Bookshelf: Fall 2026 | Book Reviews in Places Journal
Recent books on 'ungrounding' in Palestine, cinematic cities, urban playgrounds, disabled infrastructure, pressed flowers, and more.
122
Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
RACIST BY DESIGN, a new book from eminent historian Kelly Lytle Hernández about the U.S. immigration machine, is "an exceedingly useful resource," writes Laura Barraclough. "The research is exhaustive, the evidence impeccably assembled, the argumentation bulletproof." (@wwnorton.com)
placesjournal.org
Bookshelf: Fall 2026 | Book Reviews in Places Journal
Recent books on 'ungrounding' in Palestine, cinematic cities, urban playgrounds, disabled infrastructure, pressed flowers, and more.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Claire Zimmerman offers praise for Jay Cephas's FORDISM AND THE CITY, which positions Fordism as inherently anti-urban. "This insightful history helps pinpoint some of the predatory practices of technological capitalism, spawned in the North American industrial city." (@upittpress.bsky.social)
placesjournal.org
Bookshelf: Fall 2026 | Book Reviews in Places Journal
Recent books on 'ungrounding' in Palestine, cinematic cities, urban playgrounds, disabled infrastructure, pressed flowers, and more.
121
Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
A new book from Claudia Horn examines the ecological dimensions of Rosa Luxemburg's economic theories. For readers looking for an entry into Luxemburg’s thinking about capitalism, and who enjoy thinking with and looking at flora, this book is for you, writes Juliana Spahr. (@orbooks.bsky.social)
placesjournal.org
Bookshelf: Fall 2026 | Book Reviews in Places Journal
Recent books on 'ungrounding' in Palestine, cinematic cities, urban playgrounds, disabled infrastructure, pressed flowers, and more.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
David Serlin reviews BROKEN WORLDS, DISABLED KIN by @kellyfritsch.bsky.social & @anneemcguire.bsky.social, who "rebut the solution-oriented approaches that typify design for disability...Being disabled kin together is how we manage the effects of living in a broken world." (@uminnpress.bsky.social)
placesjournal.org
Bookshelf: Fall 2026 | Book Reviews in Places Journal
Recent books on 'ungrounding' in Palestine, cinematic cities, urban playgrounds, disabled infrastructure, pressed flowers, and more.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Dr. Fadi Shayya calls @forensicarchi.bsky.social founder Eyal Weizman's new book UNGROUNDING "essential reading for anyone dedicated to human rights. It shows how the Israeli state spatially organizes genocide and how architecture’s methods can reconstruct and contest its material traces."
placesjournal.org
Bookshelf: Fall 2026 | Book Reviews in Places Journal
Recent books on 'ungrounding' in Palestine, cinematic cities, urban playgrounds, disabled infrastructure, pressed flowers, and more.
121
Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Our latest book review roundup includes new work by Eyal Weizman, Kelly Lytle Hernández, and Mark Lamster. Izzy Kornblatt sifts through Denise Scott Brown’s photographs, disability scholars Kelly Fritsch and Anne McGuire discover a kinship with broken infrastructure...and that’s just half of it:
placesjournal.org
Bookshelf: Fall 2026 | Book Reviews in Places Journal
Recent books on 'ungrounding' in Palestine, cinematic cities, urban playgrounds, disabled infrastructure, pressed flowers, and more.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Don’t miss these important reads from our archive, in honor of International Repair Day coming up this Saturday 🧵
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Saturday October 17th is International Repair Day, when communities around the world will gather to celebrate the power and promise of repair. Most repair organizations focus on household goods and appliances. But just as important, we believe, is the repair of our built and natural environments.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
This Repair Day, we hope you’ll (re)read these timely essays in Places — and perhaps even participate in an upcoming repair-related event near you, which are being organized by repairday.org. How can we begin to put the world back together?
repairday.org
International Repair Day - Repair Day
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
More recently, Places editor Nancy Levinson brought renewed attention to a thesis from preservationist James Marston Fitch, who argued that reuse of existing buildings should be prioritized over new construction. "At once simple and radical, his argument is more relevant than ever," Levinson writes.
placesjournal.org
Architects in Wonderland
Decades ago, James Marston Fitch argued that reuse of existing buildings should be prioritized over new construction. His thesis is more relevant than ever.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
With rising interest in ethics of repair, we published a narrative survey featuring dispatches from nearly 100 scholars, designers, and activists around the world. "Field Notes on Repair" offered a barometer of attitudes toward repair and its role in our cultures, economies, and ecosystems.
placesjournal.org
Field Notes: Repair
Scholars, designers, planners, activists, and artists share observations on practices of repair, reuse, preservation, maintenance, and care.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
In 2024, our series Repair Manual posed a difficult question: How might the design professions, premised on carbon-hungry growth, make the paradigm shift from building the world to repairing the world? In five essays, scholars explored what such a sociotechnical transformation might require.
placesjournal.org
Repair Manual
How might the design professions adapt to the paradigm shift from building the world to repairing the world?
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
In a close reading of the survival film All Is Lost, architects Kiel Moe and Daniel S. Friedman offered notes on broken world design and life at the end of modernity. Just like Our Man clings to his failed boat, they write, "we find ourselves adrift, clinging to the wreckage of our failed projects."
placesjournal.org
All Is Lost: Notes on Broken World Design
J.C. Chandor's elegiac film tells the story of one man’s struggle with nature. For designers, it's also a persuasive parable about our collective struggle with life at the end of modernity.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Repair thinking has long animated this journal. In 2018, we published @shannonmattern.bsky.social's influential “Maintenance and Care,” which offers a “working guide to the repair of rust, dust, cracks, and corrupted code in our cities, our homes, and our social relations.”
placesjournal.org
Maintenance and Care: Fixing a Broken World
A working guide to the repair of rust, dust, cracks, and corrupted code in our cities, our homes, and our social relations.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Saturday October 17th is International Repair Day, when communities around the world will gather to celebrate the power and promise of repair. Most repair organizations focus on household goods and appliances. But just as important, we believe, is the repair of our built and natural environments.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Next Saturday, October 17th, for International Repair Day, hundreds of events will bring people together to celebrate the power and promise of repair. Repair thinking has long animated this journal. Read on for some of our essential reads on the repair of our built and natural environments.
mailchi.mp
A Reading List for International Repair Day
Repair thinking has long animated this journal. Here are our essential reads on the maintenance and care of our built environment.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
"Some will argue that I am asking too much of data, that a number is but one index and will never represent the full scope of loss. That may be true; yet given how the DINS count determines compensation amounts and rebuilding timelines, we need better methods of tabulating wildfire devastation."
placesjournal.org
What the Count Misses
Wildfire recovery tends to overlook damage that can’t be measured. In Altadena, the number of buildings that burned in the Eaton Fire says little about what residents really lost.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
"Knowing how many buildings burned, and how much of each building burned, is essential; but it tells us nothing about what the buildings were used for, who depended on them, and by what miracle of persistence they existed at all." Nicole Lambrou, on "What the Count Misses" in wildfire recovery:
placesjournal.org
What the Count Misses
Wildfire recovery tends to overlook damage that can’t be measured. In Altadena, the number of buildings that burned in the Eaton Fire says little about what residents really lost.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Wildfire recovery tends to overlook damage that can’t be measured. In Altadena, the number of buildings that burned in the Eaton Fire says little about what residents really lost. “A structure loss count that allocates no value to social infrastructure is dangerously incomplete.” — Nicole Lambrou
placesjournal.org
What the Count Misses
Wildfire recovery tends to overlook damage that can’t be measured. In Altadena, the number of buildings that burned in the Eaton Fire says little about what residents really lost.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Wildfire recovery planning in the U.S. is almost always driven by the number of buildings that burned. But in Altadena, this count says little about what was actually lost — about the social services and care infrastructures — and about all those whose lives depended on them. From Nicole Lambrou:
placesjournal.org
What the Count Misses
Wildfire recovery tends to overlook damage that can’t be measured. In Altadena, the number of buildings that burned in the Eaton Fire says little about what residents really lost.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
When a violent mob drove Punjabi settlers from Bellingham, WA, in 1907, the city became a flashpoint for exclusionary rhetoric and new carceral practices of detention and deportation. @rozinaali.bsky.social examines nativist hostilities in the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the century:
placesjournal.org
A Riot in Bellingham
When a violent mob drove Punjabi settlers from Bellingham, Washington, in 1907, the town became a flashpoint for exclusionary rhetoric and restrictive immigration.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
When a violent mob drove Punjabi settlers from Bellingham, Washington, in 1907, the city became a flashpoint for exclusionary rhetoric and restrictive immigration. For An Unfinished Atlas, @rozinaali.bsky.social writes about the anxieties that fueled nativist hostilities at the turn of the century.
placesjournal.org
A Riot in Bellingham
When a violent mob drove Punjabi settlers from Bellingham, Washington, in 1907, the town became a flashpoint for exclusionary rhetoric and restrictive immigration.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Benjamin Mehigan is the recipient of the latest On the Brinck | Places Prize, our ongoing collaboration with the SA+P @unm.edu. Mehigan's project will focus on the Roadless Rule, and the impact its rescission would have on millions of acres of public land in Arizona, New Mexico, and across the U.S.
placesjournal.org
Benjamin Mehigan Wins 2026 On the Brinck | Places Prize
Mehigan's project will focus on the Roadless Rule, and the impact its rescission would have on public lands in the U.S. — including 2.7 million acres of forests in Arizona and New Mexico.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
From our September newsletter: Mireille Roddier, on air-conditioning and the distribution of comfort; Linda Quiquivix, on the limits of North America; and Jen Rose Smith, on the tale of a blind man and a loon.
mailchi.mp
Metabolic Rifts. Imaginary Mexico. Arctic Storytelling.
On air conditioning and the distribution of comfort; the limits of North America; and the tale of a blind man and a loon.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
A tale shared by Native peoples across the circumpolar Arctic tells of a blind man who, with the aid of a loon, kills a woman he feels has wronged him. @sprucehen.bsky.social writes about the elusive nature of language, and the intricacies of a story that's been passed down orally for generations.
placesjournal.org
Blind Man and Loon
A tale shared by Native peoples across the circumpolar Arctic reveals the elusive nature of language, and has come to shape many Native connections to place.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
A tale shared by Native peoples across the circumpolar Arctic tells of a blind man who, with the aid of a loon, kills a woman he feels has wronged him. @sprucehen.bsky.social writes about the elusive nature of language, and the intricacies of a story that's been passed down orally for generations.
placesjournal.org
Blind Man and Loon
A tale shared by Native peoples across the circumpolar Arctic reveals the elusive nature of language, and has come to shape many Native connections to place.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
A tale shared by Native peoples across the circumpolar Arctic tells of a blind man who, with the aid of a loon, kills a woman he feels has wronged him. The story reveals the elusive nature of dAXunhyuuga’, the Eyak language, and the intricacies of a legend passed down orally for generations.
placesjournal.org
Blind Man and Loon
A tale shared by Native peoples across the circumpolar Arctic reveals the elusive nature of language, and has come to shape many Native connections to place.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
A tale shared by Native peoples across the circumpolar Arctic tells of a blind man who, with the aid of a loon, kills a woman he feels has wronged him. It is unsurprising that this bird, expert diver and water navigator, with its singular call, has come to shape so many Native stories of place.
placesjournal.org
Blind Man and Loon
A tale shared by Native peoples across the circumpolar Arctic reveals the elusive nature of language, and has come to shape many Native connections to place.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
After 9/11, thousands of tons of steel debris from the WTC was gifted to memorials around the country. "This relic steel is imbued with conflicting emotions: it's an emblem of closure, organizing civic attention at sites of solace, while also encouraging militarism and a fascination with strength."
placesjournal.org
Relic Steel
After 9/11, the Port Authority of N.Y. and N.J. catalogued hundreds of pieces of steel debris. Much of it ended up in small municipal memorials in office parks and parking lots around the country.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
In the aftermath of 9/11, the Port Authority gifted 1,800 pieces of steel debris to municipal memorials in the U.S. and abroad. "These installations physicalize and parcel out the memory of the towers and their destruction," wrote Samuel & Max Holleran. "They are imbued with conflicting emotions."
placesjournal.org
Relic Steel
After 9/11, the Port Authority of N.Y. and N.J. catalogued hundreds of pieces of steel debris. Much of it ended up in small municipal memorials in office parks and parking lots around the country.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The U.S. just had its hottest summer on record. As did France, and Spain, and the UK. This past August was Earth’s hottest ever recorded. Reflecting on a summer of heat waves, Mireille Roddier shares how she’s kept her home cool, without A/C, and what such practices teach us about planetary care.
placesjournal.org
Not Cool
Keeping a Parisian apartment cool during record heatwaves can teach us how to more sustainably manage the energy flows of cities, economies, and the planet.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The U.S. just had its hottest summer on record. As did France, and Spain, and the UK. This past August was Earth’s hottest ever recorded. Reflecting on a summer of heat waves, Mireille Roddier shares how she’s kept her home cool, without A/C, and what such practices teach us about planetary care.
placesjournal.org
Not Cool
Keeping a Parisian apartment cool during record heatwaves can teach us how to more sustainably manage the energy flows of cities, economies, and the planet.
02010
Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
"We need to remember the everyday caretaking practices that predate constant access to easy energy," Mireille Roddier writes. "Keeping heat out demands the same care as keeping my plants alive." On the limits of air conditioning, and the need to realign our expectations of comfort indoors:
placesjournal.org
Not Cool
Keeping a Parisian apartment cool during record heatwaves can teach us how to more sustainably manage the energy flows of cities, economies, and the planet.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
"Energy cannot be decoupled from capital, nor from its inevitable dissipation as heat. The further I displace this expenditure, the more I can ignore it or pretend it can be offset. I can try to make my thermal waste someone else’s problem, as if we were not all bound together." —Mireille Roddier
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
"Some have calculated that, were each Parisian housing unit to be equipped with air conditioning, the city would gain additional 5-10ºC during heat waves, rendering the entire capital uninhabitable." Mireille Roddier, on what the thermodynamics of one apartment can teach us about planetary care:
placesjournal.org
Not Cool
Keeping a Parisian apartment cool during record heatwaves can teach us how to more sustainably manage the energy flows of cities, economies, and the planet.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Not only will such changes improve our sensorial lives, Soper argues; they can also help inspire an “alternative politics of prosperity” premised on sustainability. (3/3) From the Places Archive:
placesjournal.org
The Trouble with Consumption
The contradictions between capitalist needs and ecological imperatives are impossible to ignore. How might the tenets of alternative hedonism foster new mandates for radical political change?
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Soper reminds us that conscientious resistance to consumer culture needn’t feel like a burden. In fact, she writes, “alternative hedonism dwells on the pleasures to be gained by adopting a less high-speed, consumption-oriented way of living.” (2/3)
The dominant, affluent model of the “good life” is not only socially exploitative and ecologically damaging; it is also increasingly compromised by its negative side effects for consumers. But what conditions and forms of agency might bring about a fairer allocation and more responsible and life-enhancing uses of global resources? Alternative hedonism comes to the fore in this context as a manifestation of distinctive, though still marginal, forms of ambivalence and disquiet about the supposed blessings of the consumerist lifestyle. It figures as a potential influence on cultural change and as the impulse propelling a new politics of prosperity. Alternative hedonism can also be seen as a source of new thinking about well-being that could promote (along with other developments) a shift to a more enjoyable, socially just, and environmentally sustainable consumption.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
As Labor Day sales multiply and retailers tempt you into purchasing all manner of things you do not need, consider this essay by the British philosopher Kate Soper, part of her argument for “alternative hedonism.” (1/3)
placesjournal.org
The Trouble with Consumption
The contradictions between capitalist needs and ecological imperatives are impossible to ignore. How might the tenets of alternative hedonism foster new mandates for radical political change?
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
“The better we understand energy flows at the scale of an apartment, the more wisely we can manage them in service of a livable metropolis or planet.” @mireio.bsky.social on how she keeps her Parisian apartment cool, without AC, during record heatwaves—and what it’s taught her about planetary care:
placesjournal.org
Not Cool
Keeping a Parisian apartment cool during record heatwaves can teach us how to more sustainably manage the energy flows of cities, economies, and the planet.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
"I need to lower my metabolism not only to match my neighbor’s, but also that of my neighbor’s neighbor, and theirs, until we are again operating within earth’s carrying capacity at every scale, from the apartment to the globe — until our collective metabolisms approximate that of nature."
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