When we want nothing more than to hold you close, we’ll stream until the day we meet again.

When our schedules keep us from loved ones, when our relationship to the land we call home grows estranged, when it feels like “real life” is somewhere else—how may we love at a distance? Our answer is subtle: maybe To Stream is to Touch at a Distance.

Given the intimacy of the theme, we expected tender love stories and lighthearted anecdotes. Those did arrive. Yet the submissions surprised us by reaching far beyond romance: from the playful act of following an ex on Spotify to the sobering reality of media blackouts in Iran, contributors mapped the undercurrents between people, examined the environmental toll of our streaming habits, and exchanged letters across distant cities. This breadth of perspectives shows that streaming—and the yearning for connection—reaches every facet of our lives. Streaming is a tool as well as a metaphor for understanding that we, as architects, are nodes connected to a larger system of people and places—sometimes close, sometimes far. As Keller Easterling writes, “the most consequential forms today are not singular objects, but active forms that organize relationships, flows, and exchanges.”

To our writers, thank you for your vulnerability. Aside from loving at a distance, we hope that, in knowing each other more, we can all care better—and love harder.

To our YSoA community, we love, and see you,

Ambika, Ahenne, & Stone