CLARA Recherche-Architecture-Research, Place Flagey 19, Brussels (2025)

05/12/2025

CLARA 11 IS HERE!

Clara’s 11th issue The Ethics of the Detailing is guest-edited by Tiphaine Abenia (Université libre de Bruxelles), Louis Destombes (ENSA La Villette) and Daniel Estevez (ENSA Toulouse). This issue explores contemporary practices and theories surrounding architectural detailing and their ethical implications. It approaches the detail as an active site of negotiation, where those who make decisions are not always those who construct, and rarely those who inhabit. Starting from this tension, the seven contributions— authored by architects, engineers, landscape architects, and researchers—seek to question and expand the conceptual frameworks that define the architectural detail.

The Position(s) section includes an original translation, by Marine Beuerle and Mathias Rollot, of a 1984 text by Jos Boys (Matrix collective), an introduction examining the possibilities of a feminist critique of architecture.

Clara 11 is available online on Cairn.info and soon in bookstores.

Cover photo from Giaime Meloni.

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CLARA 11 EST ARRIVÉ!

Le dossier thématique Éthique du détail est dirigé par Tiphaine Abenia (Université libre de Bruxelles), Louis Destombes (ENSA La Villette) et Daniel Estevez (ENSA Toulouse). Il s’intéresse aux pratiques et théories contemporaines du détail architectural et aux implications éthiques qu’elles soulèvent. Ce dossier interroge le détail comme lieu d’action, où cell·eux qui décident ne sont pas toujours cell·eux qui réalisent, et rarement cell·eux qui habitent. En posant cette tension comme point de départ, les sept contributions réunies dans ce dossier — portées par des architectes, ingénieur.es, paysagistes et chercheur·es — proposent d’interroger et d’élargir les cadres définitionnels du détail architectural.

La rubrique "Position(s)" de ce numéro comporte une traduction originale d’un texte de Jos Boys (collectif Matrix) datant de 1984 par Marine Beuerle et Mathias Rollot, accompagnée d’une introduction interrogeant les possibilités d’une critique féministe de l’architecture.

Clara 11 est disponible en version électronique sur Cairn.info, et très prochainement en version papier en librairie.

21/11/2025

NEW CALL FOR PAPERS!

Clara and guest editors Seth Denizen, Jolein Bergers, Nadia Casabella, and Ananda Kohlbrenner are launching a call for papers for the thematic section "Architecture has a soil problem" of issue 13, to be published in 2027.

Architecture has a soil problem. Not only epistemologically—through the discipline’s limited frameworks to understand, analyze, or work with soil—but also ontologically, in the very way it conceives of soil in the first place. From the digging of foundations to the sealing of surfaces, architectural practice typically treats soil as ‘dirt’, an interchangeable substance devoid of specificity, meaning, or vitality. Soils are too often reduced to a passive background for human activity, an empty canvas to build upon rather than a living milieu to design with, within or through. This ignorance indirectly contributes to their depletion and demise. What would it mean to resist this thanatological path and instead reconceptualize both soil and architecture through their entanglements, in relation to the pedogenetic processes they co-produce?
Architecture has a soil problem or rather, several interrelated problems or predicaments that must be addressed. In this call for contributions, we invite submissions that may (A) deepen our understanding of these problems through scholarly or visual interventions, or (B) present case studies of built projects that suggest ways of confronting or transforming them.
Contributions may take the form of academic papers or visual essays, and can be written in English or French. Abstracts should be submitted by 30/01/2026 to clara.archi [at] ulb.be. Full CFP and exact modalities can be found on our website: https://clararevue.ulb.be.

24/10/2025

Clara launches a call for papers for its Archives and Position(s) sections, to be published in issue 13.

Clara is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal in architecture dedicated to topics, research methods and tools specific to the field. Each issue comprises a main thematic section with its own call for papers, and two additional sections with Archives and Position(s) articles.

Articles in the section Archives are dedicated to the exploration, valorization and/or problematization of an archive. We invite the articles in this section to investigate little-known archival resources, shed light on the genesis of architectural projects documented therein, and address the new challenges faced by contemporary archival collections (preservation, digitization, decolonization, etc.). The articles in this section are limited to a maximum of 50,000 characters (including spaces, notes, bibliography, and captions). They are subject to a double-blind peer review process, which aims at verifying their originality, appropriateness of the adopted research methods, the relevance of their argument and conclusions, their structure and readability.

The section Position(s) gathers short articles that take a stand on current events in the field of architecture. Contributions can take the form of a manifesto, a book review, an exhibition report, or give an account of an educational experience.
The format is limited to a maximum of 25,000 characters (including spaces, notes, bibliography, and captions). Articles in the section Position(s) are not double-blind peer reviewed but evaluated by Clara’s editorial board.

To submit a proposal for Clara’s Archives or Position(s) sections, researchers are invited to send an abstract (800 words) and a short resume to Clara’s editorial board: clara.archi[at]ulb.be, by January 15th 2026.

Full call for papers on our website!

29/08/2025

Clara is now available in bookshops! You can directly purchase or order your copy from your local bookseller.

For orders outside Belgium and France, please ask your bookseller to place an order through our distributor DOD&Cie, or reach out to us at clara.archi[at]ulb.be.

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