This issue of Fresh Meat (FM) draws attention to instances of contamination in architecture. Contamination has many definitions, and FM15 brings these interpretations into conversation to examine and contest notions of purity and progress in the field. Projects consider disciplinary expansion (or creep), encroaching environmental pollution, the conditioning of space, and other cases that challenge traditional wisdom and best practices. It is necessary to take a close look at moments where our discipline has broken down if we are to keep building. This issue examines the edge conditions, the cast-offs, the old ideas that, in this moment of crisis, deserve a second look. By curating design proposals, critical essays, and interviews with practitioners, we cultivate an understanding of architecture as both contaminating and contaminated.

Scott Clancy, associate editor, is a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) School of Architecture. Coming into the field with a bachelor’s degree in history, he appreciates the cultural context of architecture and strives to frame its modern iterations within the stories of the people who built before. He loves a good precedent study.

Sean Conway, associate editor, is a master’s of architecture student at the UIC. He believes that the best buildings are the ones that don't get torn down.

Rosa Gaia, associate editor, is a master’s of architecture student at UIC. She is the elder-millennial representative for FM15.

Evan Glenzinski, associate editor, is an undergraduate architecture student at UIC. He is interested in the abstract representation of architectural concepts and hopefully getting his degree one day.

Campbell Guillen, associate editor, is a bachelor’s of science in architecture student at UIC. He is interested in conceptual criticisms and the development of architecture as a cultural practice. His theoretical interests include the direct comparison of the qualities of clay and LEGO bricks. He is an amateur heavyweight boxer.

Rachelle Hallberg, associate editor and middle child, is a master’s of architecture student at UIC. She speaks with a Minnesotan accent and enjoys taking meeting minutes.

Coleman Little, associate editor, is a master’s of science in architecture/master’s of arts in design criticism student at the UIC. He is interested in architectural media, print preferred, but Instagram will do. He recommends the album Architecture & Morality by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

Maggie Macpherson, associate editor, is a master’s of architecture student at UIC. She has taught architecture and design build classes for high school students and is interested in design processes that facilitate greater collaboration between architects, planners, builders, and the public.

Tara Tischer, associate editor, is a master’s of architecture student at UIC. She has a degree in neuroscience and is interested in the overlap between the built environment and the lived experiences of its inhabitants.

Muhammad Zegar, associate editor, is a master’s of architecture student interested in the de-weaponization of architecture and how it can benefit the people around it, from the scale of small objects to urban planning. A comprehensive list of his hobbies includes playing soccer and watching FX Network’s hit comedy television series, The Bear.

Fresh Meat Journal—the compendium of architectural fictions, judgments, and opinions—is a forum for freshness in architecture. FM is an independent journal published by students of the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). It was founded in 2008and is produced by students with support of UIC faculty and staff. FM publishes content that both reflects and challenges UIC’s pedagogical agenda and is a response to the architecture discipline. FM orchestrates an open dialogue between students and faculty, as well as between the school and the discipline at large. Founded in the late 1960s at the only public research university in Chicago, the School of Architecture at UIC has historically been defined by its committed understanding of architecture as a cultural practice. This implies that architecture is not only a defined field with intrinsic rules and specificities, but also one immersed in a network of manifestations, actions, philosophies, and conjunctural representations of who and how we are in the world today.