Edited by Tom Avermaete, Vronique Patteeuw, Elsbeth Ronner & Hans Teerds

The role of the architect is about more than designing buildings. Architecture and space are always related to social issues and challenges. This means that architects may be well placed to contribute to the public debate on challenges related to climate change, mobility issues, the housing crisis, healthcare and migration. Social geographers and sociologists, journalists and planners often make the link between the built environment and social issues. However, designers are rarely heard in the debate, or are not allowed to be. This may be because both the profession and the public debate reduce architecture to aesthetics and architects to designers. As a result, social, environmental, economic and political challenges are lost from view, and no one notices how and with what knowledge and skills architects could contribute to the debate.