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How can design be used to challenge the status quo, to interrupt the jargon, to disrupt and redirect ecological and socio-economic flows? LA+ Journal's fourth international design ideas competition invited designers to take an established place and design something to productively interrupt both its cultural and spatial context. What does this mean? It means injecting something different into a given context to effect new meanings and new functions. It means questioning what design does, who it's designed for, what it looks like, and what it means. Issue #17 brings you the results of the LA+ INTERRUPTION design competition. As well as showcasing the award-winning designs and a comprehensive Salon des Refusés, LA+ INTERRUPTION features interviews with jurors Fiona Raby, Martin Rein-Cano, Mark Raggatt, Rania Ghosn, and Jason Zhisen Ho, and an essay by Katya Crawford, coauthor of the The Design Competition in Landscape Architecture(forthcoming).

In this moment of seemingly compounding global crises and existential concerns about the future of the planet, LA+ pauses to consider the values and implications of speculation. How are speculative acts understood differently within specific disciplinary structures versus broader cultural perceptions? Whether employed as a means of influence, a method of production, a form of practice, a manner of inquiry, a way of seeing, or a motivating ideology, LA+ Speculation engages speculation and the speculative as world-shaping concepts worthy of deep and critical reflection. Guest edited by Christopher Marcinkoski with Javier Arpa Fernandez, and other contributors include: Merve BedirCasey Lance BrownStuart CandyPaul DobraszykAroussiak Gabrielian Daisy GinsbergAdrian HawkerSouhei ImamuKaren LewisMin Kyung LeeMpho Matsipa Alexandra Sankova Jonah SusskindYtasha Womak

LA+ Risk invited contributors to consider the relationship between design and the evolving landscape of risk; to explore the ways in which risk shapes our behaviour and impacts our experiences of designed environments.