We create ourselves—cycles of growth and suffering, building and demolishing, choosing to be careless and loving. It takes deliberation, over and above one’s conditioning, to head towards mending, after what we have done to the environment in the name of development; depleting nature and its beauty, and its diverse offspring.

To mend, we recognise our fallibility in having erased others’ stories by deeming our needs notable, having left so many behind. Perhaps, we begin by apologising; a choice and a challenge, both shelter and cautioning; by choosing to lift another, we leave no one behind, as we build to sustain many futures.

But what would an apology be, if not practised? In the realm of architecture, how much can words do. We find ourselves at a warning, to rebuild the world with empathy as our lighthouse. This issue traces redemption and collective accountability through architecture: Natalie Mossin acmes doctrines of change in built environments; MDO prioritises adaptive reuse; Anna Heringer puts architects from the Global North in a spot.

Can architecture go beyond the built, as a tool that rallies, a medium that binds, and a routine that restores?