Nostalgia confers a lens to look backwards and forwards, to reminisce and project. But, are we really nostalgic for the past? How much of our nostalgia is for the possibility of a future we can no longer have? Let us prod nostalgia, pitting its longings, fears, and speculations against one another. Where may this unraveling take us? Where does it start? POOL is driven by an interest in an expanding definition of architectural work that, in a culture of high volume content exchange, considers curation as a primary form of cultural production. Following this, we contend that the syllabus, the archive, and the aggregator are all valid forms of architectural work that we welcome and encourage in our publication. POOL is a site of this type of work, experimenting with interface between its three primary platforms: event, digital, and print. Events and ongoing digital publication act not only as productive indicators of relevant themes, but also feed into an annual print edition.

Founded in 2015, POOL is the student magazine of the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California, Los Angeles. The publication is driven by an interest in an expanding definition of architectural work that, in a culture of high volume content exchange, considers curation as a primary form of cultural production. POOL is a site for this type of work, experimenting with the interface between its three primary platforms: digital, print, and public programs. Events and ongoing digital publication act not only as productive indicators of relevant themes, but also feed into an annual print edition. POOL aspires to reach new audiences, seeing the separation of fields into hermeneutic discourses as unproductive, and strives instead for the inclusion of new and unexpected audiences through the incorporation of media unconventional to architectural discourse.

The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Architecture and Urban Design's department is a champion of ideas and their articulate expression. Faculty teach students to engage the world around them, to see ideas as productive forms of response, and to leverage design and writing as expressions of newly curated perspectives. These ideas are grounded in a critical engagement with the history and theory of architecture and the future contingencies of contemporary culture. Through rigorous inquiry, we interrogate contemporary urban issues and propose possible futures with equal measures of expertise, optimism, and vision.