Platform is the annual magazine of The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture. This issue, titled Urban Agencies: Projections for the Contemporary City, is edited by Associate Professor Dean Almy and asks in what ways we are contributing to the debate on how cities should respond to the contemporary environment—where tensions between economic opportunity, climate change, affordability, and available resources are atomizing the urban environment—and how might cities remain, and offer themselves even further now, as stages for public debate and positive futures for the physical world. In 2020, while many of our streets appear temporarily vacated, people have demonstrated that they have not abandoned their sense of urbanity. This issue asks how and what is the role of urban design practice within this contemporary context, and how can the academy act to direct the conversation today?
