Jesse Seegers 

AGENDA is a catalog of 365 days, like a diary or journal: a collective narrative, personal and subjective. It documents the work and thinking of JDS Architects over a specific year marked by crisis, beginning on September 15th, 2008, the day that Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. The form of the book exploits the double meaning of its title, presenting the absurdities of day-to-day architectural practice while also staking our intent. Rather than a definitive direction, our agenda is a definitive attitude —of eagerness, enthusiasm, and optimism, of criticality and concern, of fun and inquiry. It is a directive, a motivation to act, at times without clear knowledge of where our agenda will lead. “Change,” the buzzword of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, is the order of the day, and the task of AGENDA is to explore what kind of change will be needed if architects are to assume a political and social agency in this new landscape. Bringing together diverse forms of content, AGENDA is a product of vigilant observation, introspection, and engagement with outside thinkers and collaborators – artists, curators, politicians, authors, economists, journalists, developers, educators, and architects.

Contributions by Sozyone Gonzalez, Ernesto Neto, Geoff Manaugh, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Cleon Peterson, Michael Speaks, Bruce Sterling, Lars von Trier,  Barbara Vanderlinden

Edited by Jesse Seegers, Benedict Clouette, Ryan Neiheiser, and Julien De Smedt

Graphic Design:  Kasia Korczak and Boy Vereecken

Printing: Die Keure

Purchase via Actar

ISBN:  978-84-92861-62-0