MAS Context is a quarterly journal that addresses the issues that affect the urban context. Each issue delivers a comprehensive and critical view of a single topic through the active participation of people from different fields and different perspectives who, together, instigate the debate over urban issues that affect the way we live and design. MAS Context shares remarkable ideas and work with the public—produced by architects and designers for people interested in the future of the place where they live. It embraces collaboration, explores new formats of distribution, and thinks in a critical way about the issues that affect us. And at the same time, it works to generate a collaborative culture of design in the city where it is produced, Chicago.

Iker Gil is an architect and director of MAS Studio, a collaborative architecture and urban design firm. Gil is also founder and editor-in-chief of the design journal MAS Context. He is the editor of Shanghai Transforming (Actar Publishers), and curator of the exhibitions BOLD: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago, presented at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Shanghai Transforming, and Synchronizing Geometry. His work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the MCA Chicago, and the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale. Gil is the recipient of the Emerging Visions Award from the Chicago Architectural Club (2010), as well as grant support from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the Graham Foundation, and Casa Asia. Gil is licensed as an architect in Spain and obtained his MArch from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Andrew Clark, contributing editor, is director of the global brand design team at Sonos. He recently served as director of Bruce Mau Design, Los Angeles, where he led a studio designing brands, visual identities, and communication touch points. Prior to Bruce Mau Design, Clark was an experience designer at MINMAL, focusing on brand and communication design for clients, start-ups, and entrepreneurial projects. He was also art director for all brand touch-points, including packaging, web, and social communications, for MNML's self-started brand LUNATIK. Clark previously worked at Bruce Mau Design in Toronto and Chicago.

Julie Michiels, contributing editor, is a licensed architect and senior associate and senior project designer at Perkins+Will. With a focus on shaping how people experience interior spaces, she has worked on projects that range in location, scale, and program, from pre-K to international transit hubs, workplace and residential. She is also a collaborator at the design office MAS Studio, where she has participated in award-winning entries to international competitions such as Cut. Join. Play, which will be exhibited in the official US Pavilion at the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale and Festival in Barcelona.

Thirst, art director, is a Chicago-based communication design practice. Its principal designers are Rick Valicenti, John Pobojewski, and Bud Rodecker. They work with design, cultural, and civic communities. They engage in a process of discovery and experimentation, focusing on concept, craft, and artful investigation. Their work lives at the threshold between art and science, resulting in keepsake artifacts and unique experiences. Thirst believes design is integral to the human condition—ubiquitous, nourishing, and transformative—allowing us to connect with one another and compelling us to slow down and pay attention.

MAS Context was founded in 2009 and became a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization in 2011.