Mark Alan Blumberg is an Assistant Professor at the Auburn University College of Architecture Design and Construction, USA. Mark researches the spaces between cognition and representation through diagrams, and between abstraction and analysis in mapping. His interests in the urban scale and complexities serve as a connection between present environmental, cultural, and societal conditions and potential future outcomes of current decisions and practices.

Matt Hall is a Professor at the Auburn University College of Architecture Design and Construction, USA, and partner in the design firms Superunison and Obstructures. His work is concerned with the rift between intentions and consequences, the dilemmas of decision making, and the uncertain future contexts that all design is inevitably subject to. His is the co-editor of Lewerentz Fragments (Actar, 2021) and an A+U feature issue on Swedish architect Bernt Nyberg (2017), along with other publications on post-war Swedish architecture. He has lectured, published, and exhibited internationally on topics related to theory, criticism, and pedagogy.

Introduction: Obstacles in Progress 1. Ex, Est, Ut 2. I just want to say one word to you, just one word: Plastics. 3. The Mediation of Doubt and the Doubt of Mediations 4. Drawing on History 5. Types and Specimens: Plants, Digital Assets, and Ecological World-Building in Spatial Design 6. The Panecillo of Quito in 1903: Resisting Modernity in the Andes 7. Proving Grounds: Speculative Scenography and Staging the Future 8. Atado con Alambre: The Alternative Production of Ingenious Architectures 9. Driven to Distraction 10. Syn(es)thetic Futures: Lessons from the Hermetically Sealed 11. Newer Babylons 12. Unresolution: Fiction in the Space Between Inquiry and Invention 13. On Enemy Territory