A touch we all know, yet escapes definition. Soft folds into itself, creating friction. Across its chapters this issue forced the four of us to acknowledge softness in the built environment, bodily experiences, ecological and political spaces – and within us. Along the process we found ourselves as an editorial board navigating in the institutional belly of ETH. Can you sense what is left out? This form does not behave; this is a soft offer.

On the planetary, soft is a contemporary symptom that requires to move beyond anthropocentric damage and listen to ecological rhythms. It traces the subtle processes that shape our world – winds transcribed onto paper and salt slowly seeping into soil – unfolding a greater complexity, from colonialism to microplastics. These contributions delve into the agency of silt, the languages of glaciers and rivers, the signs on bark and streets. At a breaking point is sharp on politics and bends the norm, faced with institutional pressure. Here, you will encounter zines that slip into bedsheets, and meet an editorial board that has stepped away, refusing to be silent in the face of censorship. Shifting housing blocks will reveal how architecture carries the weight of ideologies. From parliament lobbies to edited self/body/flesh, politics takes shape in textures, surfaces, and personal histories. Through Interaction we are touched by forms of entanglement, weaving stories between threads, organisms, and code. In the gentle logic of the malleable – which holds without correcting, sways without arriving – softness emerges as both metaphor and mechanism. Contributions reject fixed boundaries and unsettle the idea of architecture as neutral or complete, offering instead a space that is charged, contested, and alive. From the Margins recognizes everyday forms of resistance, from the quiet strength of women’s laceworks to homemaking in (im)permanent refugee camps. When lacquered in care, power pushes belonging to happen in the crevices and reduce the city to a fragrance.

This is not an instruction manual. Let it spill out of order.