Second edition of Sphere

The Rice School of Architecture announces the release of Sphere, no. 1, a print publication celebrating the school’s vibrant academic and creative life. Building on the inaugural issue 0 from 2024, this latest issue of the journal captures a year of public events, research, and design initiatives while charting new paths for architectural exploration. It highlights a dynamic academic year that saw the opening of William T. Cannady Hall, designed by the Zurich-based firm Karamuk Kuo; the renovation of James Stirling’s MD Anderson Hall by the Chicago-based firm Kwong Von Glinow; the launch of the school’s curatorial program, Exhibitions at Rice;and a research platform studio led by Lu Wenyu and Pritzker Prize laureate Wang Shu of Amateur Architecture Studio.

“Sphere is both a periodical and a storyboard for our school,” said Igor Marjanović, William Ward Watkin Dean of the Rice School of Architecture. “The publication maintains that architects must continue to shape the world around us at various scales and locations and across time and space. In a moment defined by fragmentation and barriers, the potential of a single discipline to act as a bonding agent has never been greater.”

An archive of the previous academic year, Sphere celebrates the intersections of architecture, culture, and society. Its name references the planetary scale of architectural discourse, while the journal’s large-format design underscores the Rice School of Architecture’s commitment to publications as both intellectual constructs and enduring physical artifacts.

Edited by Professor in the Practice Nathan Friedman, Sphere draws on the school’s legacy of impactful publications, from Cite to PLAT, while forging a distinctive new voice. “The projects featured in Sphere, no. 1,present the potentials of architecture and urbanism as equal parts sledgehammer and building block,” said Friedman. “They advocate for the role of design within the much-needed work that has yet to be done and undone to make the world—with all of our planetary entanglements—a more just and sustainable place in which to live.”

Structured in five sections, Sphere captures the manifold scales of architectural discourse:

Spheres of Planetary Architecture I: Representation (foreword by Igor Marjanović)

Planetary Practice (with contributions from Carlos Jiménez; Reto Geiser; Maggie Tsang and Dalia Munenzon, Departamento del Distrito; and Brittany Utting) showcases globally interconnected projects spanning architecture, landscape, and exhibition design.

Design Research (with contributions from Albert Pope; Tania Tovar and Zhicheng Xu; Brett Schneider; and Lap Chi Kwong and Alison Von Glinow) presents scholarly articles that engage architectural design and its histories and theories.

Conversations (with contributions from Paloma Gormley with Jesús Vassallo and Brett Schneider; Amna Ansari and Christopher Davey; and Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu with Nathan Friedman) highlights the discursive nature of the school, featuring dialogues with architects, scholars, and members of Houston’s design community.

The Houston Archive Project (with contributions from Iwan Baan, Igor Marjanović, and Clare Lyster) publishes contemporary images of the city by visual artists. It documents the diversity and dynamism of Houston, a city described as one of the most pluralistic in the United States.

Future Forward (with contributions from Nino Chen and Jackie Aguilar and Nikola Kolarov) celebrates exceptional student work.

Roundup compiles all school events from the past academic year—from Houston to Chicago, Marfa, Berlin, Mexico City, Tokyo and beyond.

The publication’s design, developed in collaboration with the acclaimed Dutch graphic design studio Experimental Jetset, plays with the firm’s new visual identity for the school—based on a flexible system of points, lines, and patterns—and echoes the openness of the design process and the medium of drawing.

The Rice School of Architecture invites readers to explore Sphere, no. 1, a publication that documents the school’s activities and projects its vision for the future. The issue, a collective effort by our whole community—students, faculty, staff, and collaborators—is a testament to our school’s imagination and rigor and our work to bridge local and global conversations in architecture and design.

To purchase a copy of Sphere, email arch@rice.edu.