onsite 23, Spring 2010

small things

We have covered rather large things recently – for example, weather and war. Let us look at small things. What have you worked on, or seen, that is very modest, but very important? little, but beautiful? small of budget, slender of means? slight in scale, intense in impact?
What are the implications of micro-urbanism? weak systems?
We’ve just lived through the crash and burn of grande capitalisme. What of its associated architecture?
Is there an architecture associated with the 100-mile diet? Is it time for a resurgence of appropriate technology?
Although people still write 10,000-word essays, it is the 140-character tweet that is read. What does spatial twittering look like? Is sartorialist architecture and urbanism a new vernacular?
Give us a lovely detail that shows an economy of means.


deadline for proposals: CLOSED
deadline for finished articles: CLOSED

Texts should be 500-1000 words or less, sent as an .rtf text document. Images must be 300dpi CMYK .jpgs at least 2000px wide. Anything sent not in these formats will sink, sadly, to the bottom of the pile.
Copyright clearance must be obtained for any images not your own.

Take a look at our contributor's contract which will give you our general conditions, and also have a look at our editorial styles and policies.

On Site is not an academic journal, it is an independent magazine read by architects, artists, landscape architects, designers, geographers, students, historians and other interested people. It covers culture, infrastructure, landscape and design. We aim for sophisticated ideas in accessible language. We like construction issues and theory. We like engineering and art. We like drawings and photographs. We like enthusiasm and energy.

war memorials (ongoing)

Submissions are welcomed for an online exhibit: war memorials, beyond cenotaphs.  

This is a call for submissions for an exhibition that is a collective investigation of what it means, in 2009, to represent the facts, acts and consequences of war.  
The online exhibition will provide ideas and images around the issues of war and how and for what reasons a war, or wars, are memorialised.

You define the war, the site and propose a war memorial.  This can be entirely your own devising, or can be drawn from a current competition such as the Canadian Navy monument, or it can be a reworking of an inadequate existing memorial.  
It can be a traditional object, a re-signification of an existing landscape, the dissemination of a text,  a performance, a new media project. 

What the submission must contain is:
1.  a title
2.  the war – which, where, when, issues and causes (500 words maximum)
3.  the site – mapped
4.  a form – show it to us in a way that fits a screen (about 1024x768px ) 
5.  a short biographical note, contact email and your website if you want your project linked to your site

Maximum submission size: 2 pages, sent as pdfs please, to exhibitions

This call for submissions is an open call: we are most interested in registering how people today feel that war might be effectively marked.  What comes after the cenotaph, or Maya Lin’s walls, or wartime memory websites, to honour the participants in war, to validate or invalidate war, to prevent war, to rally to war, to mark war?
Any questions, please contact us.