Like the carpet from which it derives its name—strewn with model scraps, empty coffee cups, and broken badminton birdies—Paprika is an open and unrestrained commons for the YSoA student body. Available to all student contributors, the publication strives to reflect the culture of our school: the ideas permeating and the issues at stake. While the pits in Rudolph Hall, with all their sad scraps, may resemble what economists call the tragedy of the commons, a collective resource depleted by overuse, Paprika’s collective status makes it possible for us to debate ideas that are important to our community and to the discipline at large.

Now entering its third year in print, Paprika has arrived at a format that allows it to maintain a role both independent of and essential to the school. As a weekly broadsheet, Paprika can be a forum for student voices, an avenue for academic agency, and a round table for disciplinary responsibility. The publication strives to help us to make sense of ideas and issues together, rather than as individuals, encouraging engagement and risk-taking for deeper exploration.

The Yale studios are not unrestrained social environments, but work spaces. Despite the open floor plan that we share, we are compelled to enclose ourselves and plug in to our work. The difficulty of speaking freely in these spaces is a natural product of the serious and difficult work that we do, yet Paprika provides opportunities for us to look up from our work and talk to each other.

The Paprika editorial team will seek out and represent all student voices at YSoA. Our submissions are open (paprika.ysoa@gmail.com), as are our weekly meetings, held each Monday at 9PM. We are excited to stay in touch with graduates of the school, and warmly welcome their word from the frontier of architectural practice. We encourage all students, past and current, to get involved. If there is an issue or idea that you would like to write about, please do so. We will work with you to get it into print.

As the editorial team looks forward to a new year, we would like to thank readers, contributors, graphic designers, and issue editors who have taken on the challenge of fostering conversation. We are are incredibly appreciative of our supporters, whose generosity ensures Paprika’s continued independence and publication.