Flat
Out
Taking our time as fast as we can.
Claims on architecture from an unlikely cast
Order or Subscribe
In each issue readers will find a series of columns—essays, exposés, memoirs, letters, pitches, illustrations, conversations, vignettes, and polemics—authored by a rotating cast of undercover writers and designers. Character portraits by a different artist are commissioned for every issue.
Published twice a year, Flat Out takes its time as fast as it can, providing distance from the present tense. We invite the brave, the curious, and the skeptical alike—architects, artists, critics, curators, designers, illustrators, journalists, scholars, students, and lovers of design culture in general—to participate in untimely dialogues across diverse positions and personalities.
Browse the archive
The Inventor Imagine a Completely New Color
In August 2017, at the height of Hurricane Harvey, the United States National Weather Service was pushed to add two shades of purple—an extreme violet and a surprisingly subtle lavender—to the previous full-bodied-Malbec max on their color-coded weather maps of southeast Texas, in order to adequately represent the unprecedented rainfall the unprecedented rainfall unleashed by the storm. Similar hues, but for the opposite element, were called upon in Australia back in 2013, when temperature forecasts in the range of 52 to 54 degrees Celsius were so unheard of that the country’s Bureau of Meteorology had to add a new color—a slightly more incandescent amethyst, compared with Texas’s purple rain—to the top of its scale.
Chicago Architecture Biennial: … and other such stories
Yesomi Umolu, artistic director; Sepake Angiama and Paulo Tavares, co-curators
Chicago Cultural Center, Sept. 19, 2019–Jan. 5, 2020
As we predicted in Flat Out 3, the third edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial had very little to do with architecture.
Casting Call
Submit to Flat Out
Flat Out seeks the following characters to contribute essays, memoirs, opinion pieces, illustrations, letters, and polemics.
Proposals will be accepted on a rolling basis, with reviews conducted in March (fall issue) and September (spring issue). Audition with a 250-word abstract and two images. Send your material to casting@flatoutmag.org with the subject line “Audition.”
Read the Bios
Flat
Out
Taking our time as fast as we can.
Claims on architecture from an unlikely cast
Articles
The Inventor Imagine a Completely New Color
In August 2017, at the height of Hurricane Harvey, the United States National Weather Service was pushed to add two shades of purple—an extreme violet and a surprisingly subtle lavender—to the previous full-bodied-Malbec max on their color-coded weather maps of southeast Texas, in order to adequately represent the unprecedented rainfall the unprecedented rainfall unleashed by the storm. Similar hues, but for the opposite element, were called upon in Australia back in 2013, when temperature forecasts in the range of 52 to 54 degrees Celsius were so unheard of that the country’s Bureau of Meteorology had to add a new color—a slightly more incandescent amethyst, compared with Texas’s purple rain—to the top of its scale.
Issues
Order or Subscribe
In each issue readers will find a series of columns—essays, exposés, memoirs, letters, pitches, illustrations, conversations, vignettes, and polemics—authored by a rotating cast of undercover writers and designers. Character portraits by a different artist are commissioned for every issue.
Published twice a year, Flat Out takes its time as fast as it can, providing distance from the present tense. We invite the brave, the curious, and the skeptical alike—architects, artists, critics, curators, designers, illustrators, journalists, scholars, students, and lovers of design culture in general—to participate in untimely dialogues across diverse positions and personalities.
Browse the archive
Reviews
Chicago Architecture Biennial: … and other such stories
Yesomi Umolu, artistic director; Sepake Angiama and Paulo Tavares, co-curators
Chicago Cultural Center, Sept. 19, 2019–Jan. 5, 2020
As we predicted in Flat Out 3, the third edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial had very little to do with architecture.
Casting Call
Submit to Flat Out
Flat Out seeks the following characters to contribute essays, memoirs, opinion pieces, illustrations, letters, and polemics.
Proposals will be accepted on a rolling basis, with reviews conducted in March (fall issue) and September (spring issue). Audition with a 250-word abstract and two images. Send your material to casting@flatoutmag.org with the subject line “Audition.”
Read the Bios