CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design is pleased to announce the relaunch of the Pamphlets publication series in 2019.

The LA Forum’s long history of supporting the critical investigations of design practitioners, thinkers, and educators spans over thirty years. In particular, the Pamphlets series has offered an important platform for publishing timely research, experimental forms, and close readings on architecture and the built environment in the Greater Los Angeles context. This has resulted in a diverse array of speculative publications, such as Margaret Crawford’s The Ecology of Fantasy (1988), Warren Techentin’s Dead Malls (2004), and Ted Kane’s Polar Inertia (2008), among others.

This season we’re thinking about adaptation, transitions, and obstinance around change.

Transformational times bring exciting prospects, but also anxiety, a digging-in of heels and a bracing for what comes next. Without change we get sameness and stagnation, inviting it we ask for upheaval and uncertainty, the inevitable learning curve, and a need to adjust.

We seek proposals that respond to the following brief, and we hope for an expansive interpretation of it:

Adapt, or—what?
We are rapidly moving toward a hotter, drier, denser, older, and more crowded Los Angeles. Mayor Garcetti’s recently unveiled Green New Deal—to achieve 100% reliance on renewable energy by 2045—is already being criticized as ten years too late. If implemented, it will ask residents to radically alter the way we live, drive, consume, and make use of our resources. At the same time, L.A. County adds one new resident every 9 minutes; and by 2050, 40% of us will be seniors. How do design techniques, analytical methods, new technologies and speculative research in our allied disciplines evolve and respond to this new normal state of our built environment, our neighborhoods and our public domain? What is happening in unlikely places, contexts and collaborative arrangements that aids adaptation, pits against obstinance, or re-frames a changing L.A.?

We are seeking proposals that:
(a) demonstrate a convincing critical argument in response to the above;
(b) show a familiarity and an alignment with the LA Forum’s mission statement; and
(c) productively align with the LA Forum’s rich history of instigating design discourse for Los Angeles.

We strongly encourage proposals from emerging practitioners.

We invite proposals for Pamphlets that engage with the publication format itself: As a unique physical artifact, as a connector to public events or programming, as a medium of community outreach, or all of the above.

We also encourage experimentation in the pamphlet’s internal content, structure, and representation. The use of text, images, or a combination of both should effectively relate to the proposal’s central framing and argument.

LA Forum wants to support your project as it applies to these considerations—be it actual, speculative, literary, historical, science-fictional, already-built, never-to-be-built, tactical, or micro/specific to unique enclaves and communities of Los Angeles.

BUDGET, FORMAT & PROGRAMMING:
The LA Forum will act as the publisher of the selected proposal. It will cover copy editing, proofreading, printing, assembly, and distribution costs up to $2000.00.

We encourage participants to explore alternative, low-cost ideas related to printing and formats.

Applicants will need to demonstrate that their proposals can be accomplished within the budget and time constraints. Alternately, applicants may seek additional outside funding to supplement the budget but would need to provide documentation of secured funding before the project can proceed.

LA Forum will also promote the published pamphlet through our programming and events, and through our wide network of outreach.

SCHEDULE:
Deadline is Friday, June 28th.
Selected individual/team will be notified in early July. Publish date is Dec 2019/Jan 2020

SUBMISSION MATERIALS:

• CV and bio for each participant
• 500-word statement of project intent/project brief which demonstrates its relevance to the critical position in LA Forum’s mission statement.
• 5 to 10 example pages of previous relevant and related work
• All applicant members should be, or become, LA Forum members. Become a member here.
• Budget outline (please research production costs carefully and provide a preliminary budget that meets the available funds).

Email your proposal to info@laforum.org with the name:
PAMPHLETS_LAF_AUD_(subject)
(7MB max file size)