PLAT's purpose is to stimulate architectural discourse by generating new relationships within design, production, and theory. It operates by interweaving theoretical and applied work from students, faculty, and practitioners into an open and evolving dialogue which progresses from issue to issue. PLAT 5.0 and 5.5, focusing on the theme of license, engage a call and response setup. PLAT 6.0 focused on absence, and PLAT 6.5 responded with an absence of print altogether, updating PLAT’s digital infrastructure by launching a new website. PLAT 7.0: Sharing focuses on architecture’s relationship to highly digital-centric economies (which of course rely on massive, sometimes hidden, human labor) and means of production.

Francis Aguillard, editor-in-chief, is an urbanist and student currently studying for a master's of architecture at Rice University. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he completed an MSc in city design and social science. Aguillard also worked on the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan and the Rebuild By Design competition during his time at Waggonner & Ball Architecture/Environment in New Orleans, his hometown. He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a bachelor's of science in architecture.

Sam Schuermann, editor-in-chief, is a graduate student at Rice Architecture pursuing her master's of architecture. Schuermann graduated in 2016 from the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning with a bachelor's of science in architecture. She has worked at Solomon Cordwell Buenz in San Fransisco and Anderson Architects in New York City. More recently, she has worked with David Costanza Studio on the design, fabrication, and installation of an interactive urban-scale play object in the Mary E. Bawden Sculpture Garden at Lawndale Art Center in Houston and is the teaching assistant for building technology at Rice University.

Mona Elamin, managing editor, is a graduate student from Sudan at Rice School of Architecture pursuing her master's of architecture. She is also a 2014 graduate of the College of Art, Architecture and Design at the American University of Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates with a bachelor's of architecture, and a minor in design management. Her work experience extends between Dubai, UAE, and Houston, where she worked for offices, such as RMJM, U+A Architects, Gensler, and Shepley Bulfinch. She also took part in the Space-Time Dignity Rights exhibition in collaboration with UNRWA and the Camp-Cities exhibition and lecture. She was also awarded the British Petroleum Student Research Award in 2014, and the H. Russel Pitman Graduate Fellowship in 2016.

Mark Bavoso is from California and lives in Massachusetts. He holds a BArch from Rice University in Houston, Texas, and has worked with Michelle Chang, WW Architecture (Sarah Whiting & Ron Witte), and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. His work investigates the functional qualities of signifying elements as architectural form and has been published in PLAT journal, for which he also served as a designer of issue 7.0. In addition to architectural work he has directed several conceptual short films, most recently But/And with MacAulay Brown, and has published original research on disaster relief housing typologies in eastern Sri Lanka with Kira Clingen. In 2016 he was awarded Rice Architecture’s highest undergraduate honor, the William Ward Watkin Traveling Fellowship, for his project Nothing Doing.

PLAT journal is a biannual print journal produced by students at the Rice School of Architecture. The publication aims to put the work of Rice students and faculty in conversation with a broader architectural audience. PLAT features design projects, historical and theoretical research, and interviews. Since its founding in 2010, PLAT has explored a call-and-response format of full and half issues. This format fosters an ongoing dialogue across the thematically paired issues.