At 10PM on 20 April 2010, an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, 40 miles off the shore of Louisiana. 11 workers died; 15 were injured. Estimates for the spill range from 5,000 to 20,000 barrels per day, resulting in several million total gallons of oil polluting the gulf waters.

The largest oil spill in American history, the short- and long-term effects are numerous. Economies are at stake. Ecologies are at stake. Lifestyles and livelihoods are at stake. Whole industries have been crippled without a solution in sight and without meaningful apology. The spill has raised questions of responsibility, governance, and regulation, and the populace is left to wonder how such dangerous activities occur without seemingly legitimate plans for the worst-case scenario. Over the last forty days, several methods of mitigating this disaster have been posited and a few have been attempted through trial-and-error. The primary issues here are two-fold: stop the gushing leak and contain the oil making its way through the water.

Participants in June's Spontaneous Architecture are asked to consider a not-so-simple question: How do we fix this? Responses can address the mechanics of the leak, the currents spreading the oil, and/or the boundaries between oil, water, and land.

May Day 2010. Populations move in search of opportunity. Migrations have always been directed toward areas with more to offer, be they offering work, offering safety, or just offering the idea of a better future. Recently, as migrations cross borders, people have been getting nervous.

On 23 April 2010, Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed into law a piece of legislation that could change immigration policy and immigrant politics in the United States forever. But the US is not alone in facing some of these issues. Around the world, migration and immigration are changing our global demographics as people search for opportunity. Definitions of citizenship vary from one country to the next along with the mechanisms by which citizenship may be earned. With visas, permits, and passports, in Arizona and elsewhere, the status of the individual is reduced to the status of their documentation. We study globalization and operate within a global economy, but there is no fabled "Citizen of the World."

Participants in May's Spontaneous Architecture are invited to consider the architecture and urbanism of immigration, citizenship, national identity, and boundary. Responses may include how and why borders are secured, how and why immigrant communities and enclaves develop, the creation and implication of a global economy of remittances, or the effects of network culture and technology on the geography of opportunity and connection to home.

Universal, Social, Private, Emergency. Recent discussions on health care are discussions of access, rights, and options. They are discussions with very personal and very corporate ramifications. From choosing one's doctor and course of care to providing preventative and life-saving measures, the various health care systems under which we live affect everyday lives and decisions. Regardless of where one lives, health care security is one of the most basic determinants of quality of life.

Today, health care provision operates at multiple scales, from global to mobile to individual. International health care companies own and operate hospitals and clinics (both for- and not-for-profit) around the world. Health care systems exist at national and sub-national levels, through public policies and private insurance companies. In many underserved and emergency areas, medical care is delivered through mobile clinics. Still, the face of health care is usually that of the individual doctor who takes care of us. The recent US debates on health care include many topics, one of which is the effects of scale on the practice of medicine and the public's access to it. What happens when health care is scaled up? What happens when it is scaled down?

Participants in April's Spontaneous Architecture competition are invited to consider the question of scale in health care. Submissions should address one or more of the relevant levels and sizes of medical provision and can be institutional, organizational, or architectural in scale.

The Olympics are many things to many people: the ultimate athletic test, an opportunity to brand a city on the world stage, a bringing together of nations, a platform on which national heros are made and around which national pride is rallied, one of the largest mega-events in our modern global society, and an incredible economic generator. In all these ways, the Olympics are about one thing: competition.

The XXI Olympic Winter Games was no different. 2,629 athletes from 82 countries converged in Vancouver for two weeks to compete. But the Olympics represent more than athletic competition and sportsmanship. Nations compete. Sponsors compete. For the chance to host the mega-event, cities compete. For the contracts to build, plan, and orchestrate the event, several independent firms compete. For tourism revenue, businesses compete. The Olympic event itself competes with the various news stories arguably worthy of more worldwide attention. Global competition is the legacy of the Olympic Games, and by and large the competition is economically motivated. Olympic gold is economic currency, and for nonathletes Olympic success holds the possibility of huge monetary payoffs.

Participants in March's Spontaneous Architecture competition are invited to consider this legacy in the context of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games. Submissions should consider the multiplicity of competitions played out at the Olympics and for what these players are competing, before, during, and after the games.

"Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed." -- President Rene Preval of Haiti

In the wake of the Port-au-Prince earthquake, Haitians have sustained an immense loss of life, with numbers still climbing, and the collapse of physical structures signifying the collapse of the governmental, social, economic, and infrastructural institutions those structures housed and represented. Many of those institutions and infrastructures were weak before the quake, as Haiti is among the world's poorest nations, reliant on international aid and subject to severe economic disparity.

This earthquake was no typical disaster, and Haiti is no typical disaster-struck region. In many ways, Port-au-Prince and its institutions required rebuilding before the buildings collapsed. The relief effort of this particular disaster goes beyond air-dropping supplies and building emergency housing. Haiti also requires an emergency economic system (the banks and tax office have collapsed), an emergency medical system (hospitals have collapsed), an emergency justice system (courthouses and the federal prison have collapsed), emergency education (schools have collapsed), and an emergency government (the parliament and many ministry buildings have collapsed). People talk about emergency shelter. What about emergency institutions, only one of which is housing?

Participants in February's Spontaneous Architecture competition are invited to take this question seriously, enacting a response onto the site included below. The site includes multiple institutions and social, economic, and governmental infrastructures as well as residential areas and open space parks currently being used as campsites for those in need of housing. Participants are asked to consider one or all of the institutions present and can operate on the entire site or a specific portion thereof. Responses can be strategic, organizational, institutional, and/or architectural.

Please view both pages of this gallery.

New Year's Day 2010. Welcome to the future. Y2K is ten years behind us, and 2012 is at our doorstep.

The promises and terrors of our previously projected futures have both manifest and been forgotten. We are not living in a world of flying cars, intergalactic civilian travel, hovercraft skateboards, or robot assistants. No, but we have real-time video chat, the Hubble telescope, maglev trains, and smart phones. We are not living in the wasteland aftermath of nuclear war, but global warming is melting the arctic.

Images of our present future have historically been either utopian or dystopic. The technologies that were going to save us or destroy us have arguably done both to some degree, creating our greatest problems and our most significant solutions. We have more information at our fingertips than ever before and fewer critical tools to navigate that information with discrimination. We are more connected through our myriad telecommunications and more disconnected due to a growing class divide. The future is more complex than could've been predicted. It is more nuanced and diverse than Huxley, Orwell, Le Corbusier, or Nostradamus knew.

Times of crisis and calamity, like today, always put ideas in high demand: big ideas and big dreams to foster the next wave in invention and innovation on our way toward tomorrow.

We are living in what has historically been the future. Now that we are here, what is next? What is our future? This an open call for visionaries.

Images from the monthly RAPID RESPONSE events, showcasing and discussing the Spontaneous Architecture entries, along with an announcement of the winner.