The first issue of Contour presents a series of contributions from emerging scholars from around the world on the question “What is research in architecture?”. The contributions map a territory of research practices related to architecture and the built environment, the urban; and also to two of their main subject matters: space and its different users. The outline of this territory is marked by architectural and educational practices that stretch far beyond classic disciplinary boundaries. The goal of the Contour editorial team was not to reach consensus about the exact role of architecture in research practices. The texts and images we have selected are rather the result of tensions and contradictions that pertain to a journal issue showcasing possibilities, collisions of method, exceptions from disciplinary rules and encounters between disparate intellectual traditions. This issue does not aim to offer a holistic view of research in architecture, but rather to shed light on some of its more divergent and novel cases.