Architecture Kool-Aid kicked off Volume 07 by touching on the long-standing debate in architecture school: how echoey is the chamber? We, the volume’s editors, laced each issue with this debate as well, in the form of Katie Colford’s “Do You Read Me?” Column. And Katie’s question is one that remains valid as the years roll by — Did you read these issues, or did you spray paint your model on the terrace, using Paprika! broadsheets to protect the concrete? Did Paprika! issue’s pile up in a tidy bundle on your unused studio desk after you figured out how to set up the VPN? Did you come to the Pit at all? Did you read? Did you write? Did you visit the website? Did you visit the School of Art to work with graphic designers on an issue? Did you spontaneously work with Architecture students or Art students who edited/designed one of the V7 issues? The outreach of Paprika! is just as debatable as the outreach of any ideologies that ferment within the previously mentioned chamber.

“Does my work matter?”

In the form of copy-edit sessions, design meetings, launch events, issue critiques, endnotes, dispatches, podcasts, bulletins, posters, websites, instagram stories, mailchimp stats, this all-too-familiar internal dialogue is one that the platform continues to counteract. Paprika! spotlights an overlap between architecture students and art students, where in both cases, the students utilize the platform to find some momentary agency. Does such a reflexive broadsheet diminish this agency, or does it liven it? Furthermore, who critiques an issue filled with critique? Who is Paprika! even for?

This issue includes reflections on the first half of Paprika!’s 7th volume, foregrounding what typically flies under the radar: designer feedback, alumni responses, and guest critiques. By temporarily flipping the platform inside out, perhaps an homage to the late Richard Rogers, we hope to make Paprika!’s back-end mechanics more accessible to future contributors, designers, and coordinators.