306090 Opening up architectural discourse from every angle

“Architecture has always been a profession of sorters and of searchers, what better profession to explore new forms of editing in our new milieu?”¹

Said one of 306090 Inc. editors Jonathan D. Solomon, about Google Search and Wikipedia, explaining the large and positive role those new hierarchies of information represent to his work as an editor. Solomon has taught design at the City College of New York, and as a Banham Fellow at the University at Buffalo, United States.

The 306090 Inc. is an independent non-profit arts stewardship organization. Since its founding in 2001, by two architecture students, 306090 has worked by exploring contemporary issues in architecture “from every angle”, to support architect professionals and students by organizing publications and events geared towards fostering a community of ideas and exchange within the field of design. It is dedicated to opening up architectural discourse by publishing design projects, critical essays, and historic inquiries across a range of places, people and practices, working as an arena of open criticism, addressing contemporary conditions in political, technological and artistic disciplines on the basis of how architecture can address them.

306090’s Architecture Journal

See Architectural Journal index 2001-2006

The 306090’s Architecture Journal is an independent series of volumes dedicated to promoting the work and the interests of students of architecture and young designers, published biannually by the Princeton University Press during the years 2001 to 2006. The firsts issues of the Journal had also the subtitle “A Journal of Emergent Architecture + Design”, which was dropped out after the 5^th edition, and substituted by “Architectural Journal” only. This small change actually says a lot about the directions taken by 306090 Journal subsequently, when it comes to the bigger range of subjects covered and discussed thereafter. 
The 306090 Journal number one issue is called “Where are we right now”, published in september of 2001 and the Journal’s last issue called “Regarding public Space”, was released in september of 2005. Then, the Journal publications were substituted by the 306090 Books series.

306090' 01 Where are we right now

We may undeline, for instance, 306090’s number 01 issue ‘Where are we right now’: “306090 is a new journal that introduces the work of promising students and young professionals whose cross-disciplinary projects, ideas, buildings, and other media offer innovative directions for the growth of architecture. Published biannually, 306090 presents ideologically and geographically diverse work from a wide range of practitioners at the early stages of their careers. Proposed as an alternative to current academic publications, 306090 is dedicated to exposing the work, theories, and aesthetic practices that will guide the discipline in this new century.”

We may also underline 306090’s number 09 issue, ‘Regarding public space’, the last edition published: "Regarding Public Space explores the conception, production, and operation of contemporary public space in the city from the vantage of its design, development, construction, and use. Rather than dwell on what public space is, 306090's guest editors identify it as the material manifestation of intersecting forces (economics, program, sustainable land-use) whose formation involves a complex set of manipulations in both physical space and managerial aptitude. The articles in this volume, by contributors from cities across the globe, test the ways in which we articulate the built environment to make public space, interrogating it through examples from practice and theoretical developments alike."

306090' 09 Regarding public space

The main editors of 306090’s Journal were Emily Abruzzo and Jonathan D. Solomon, however, during the 5 years of activity there were some guest-editors incorporating the 306090’s edition team. To mention a few names: Jason K. Johnson (guest-editor of 306090’s 04 issue, “Global Trajectories”); Patricia Acevedo-Riker, Martha Merzig, John Riker, Jeremy Sudol (guest-editors of 306090’s 06 issue); David L. Hays (guest-editor of 306090’s 07 issue, “Landscape within Architecture”); Alex Duval, Kjersti Monson (guest-editors of 306090’s 08 issue “Autonomous Urbanism”); Cecilia Benites and Claire Lyster (guest-editors of 306090’s 09 issue, “Regarding Public Spaces”). 

306090’s Books trajectory

See 306090 Books Index

From 2006, there is a new serie substituting the Journal: The 306090’s Books. They work as a extension of the Journal nevertheless in a new extended format. Each themed edition still contains the same mix of work “from every angle” of the ideological spectrum, from a diverse group of contributors—including students, architects and professionals, young educators, and established minds in practice and pedagogy. 

306090' 13 Sustain and Develop

From 306090’s most recent Books:  the 13th volume “Sustain and Develop”,  investigates the contradictory yet potentially productive tension between our drive to develop and our growing knowledge and emerging concern that such unregulated growth is eroding the natural ecology in which we live. We are continually confronted with the knowledge of our own destructive potential and the unknown unquantifiable revenge that nature will undoubtedly seek, while the wonders of modern life gleam on the horizon for a world population of whom for the first time over half live in cities. How can architects confront either of these courses within the paradox that any mark in the ground will inevitably disrupt a natural ecology?

Rather than take a one-sided position, 306090’ 13 provides a forum to investigate sustainability and development and their relationships to one another from every angle. Eschewing established definitions and polemics in favor of active investigations into current development models, ecological strategies, site specific examples of the tension between development and sustainability, and the philosophical and theoretical context underpinning both terms.  

306090 13 re-examines the premise of the first definition defining sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Is such a position tenable? Is the standard it implies sufficient to guide our work? How can developing countries undergoing rapid urbanization processes, particularly in Asia, be brought actively into the debate? How can developed countries with their own post-industrial landscapes and shrinking populations adapt to a redefined global economy? 

306090' 14 Making a case

The series's fourteenth and last book, “Making A Case”, features radically new and varied ideas about the future of the North American home. To reprise this idea today seems appropriate: it is important to ask what the house of our time should look like, do and say — but in a time of continuing crisis, addressing the contemporary house is complex. Faced with post-urban flight, the need to encourage density, a new focus on food production close to home, a glut of cheap, unused housing in some areas while homelessness persists in others, we are looking at shifts in the American way of life (both those already underway as well as those not yet begun but required for long-term survival) so drastic that they can only suggest a new and different future for the North American house.

Unfortunatelly, the 306090 Inc. website has a lack of information when it comes to new 306090 Books issues, new works, or general info about the organization: the last web actualization is dated 2010 (to see 306090 “News and Events” page click here). Because of that, a few weeks ago it was tried to contact 306090 editors, to ask about the organization’s future. Nevertheless, until now all four questions remain without answers. See them below:

1. When it is going to be published the next 306090' Books issue? 

2. What is the main intention in changing the 306090 type of publications from 'Journal' to 'Book'?

3. What are the new projects of 306090 Inc.?

4. What are the expectations for the 306090 organization's future?

306090 main editor, Jonathan D. Solomon, believes that search and sort tools, such as Wikipedia, have proved searching to be ‘extraordinarily powerful’. His discourse not only directs to the idea of using this sources as strong aids to the creators of content, but also reveals his acceptance of what ‘governs our way forward’ to be the new maxim: ‘search, sort, search, sort’, in a way which we must be comfortable and facile with the new ‘Less is More’ of our time. These affirmations synthesize the 306090’s way of discoursing, writing, and the open content and criticism approach adopted by them. All 306090’s publications are available on Google Books, in agreement with the members of the organization beliefs. 

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¹Article written by Jonathan D. Solomon about the 306090 Inc. from “20/20: Editorial Takes on Architectural Discourse”. Kirk Wooller. London, Architectural Association Publications, 2011.