Name

Places Journal

Legal name

The Design History Foundation

Website

https://placesjournal.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

1983

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Architecture & Urbanism Publishing

NAICS

Periodical Publishers (51312), Book Publishers (513130)

SIC

Periodicals: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2721), Miscellaneous Publishing (2741)

akta.pro primary industry

Academic & Scholarly Journals Publishing (Peer-Reviewed) (MPAJABAC)

akta.pro secondary industries

Interdisciplinary & Multidisciplinary Scholarly Publishing (EDAGAFAI), Humanities & Arts Scholarly Publishing (EDAGAFAE), Arts, Culture & Literary Magazines (MPAJAEAN), Scholarly Societies & Conference Proceedings Publishing (MPAJABAK)

Keywords

• Architecture journal
• Urban design publication
• Landscape scholarship
• Public scholarship
• Built environment

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Academic Partner Support: Places Journal is sustained by an international network of academic partners (universities and schools of architecture, landscape, and urban planning) who provide funding and editorial guidance. These institutional relationships form the financial backbone of the journal.
2. Individual Donations: Readers are encouraged to donate to support the journal. The site prominently features a 'Donate to Places' call-to-action. Donors at certain levels receive tangible recognition (e.g., postcard sets for $100+ donors) and are listed on a donors page.
3. Foundation Grants: Places Journal receives support from foundations as part of its nonprofit funding model. The journal actively pursues foundation grants to sustain operations and editorial independence.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Places Journal is a nonprofit online publication of public scholarship on architecture, landscape, and urbanism. It freely publishes interdisciplinary articles, essays, criticism, narrative journalism, and photography, and also operates a book publishing imprint (Places Books) with Princeton University Press. The journal is sustained by an international network of academic partner institutions, foundation grants, and individual reader donations.

Product overview

Places Journal is a nonprofit online publication dedicated to public scholarship on architecture, landscape, and urbanism. The core product is the main journal publication featuring interdisciplinary articles, essays, criticism, and photography. The platform is supplemented by several integrated features: Reading Lists (a user-generated bibliographic system), Places Books (a book publishing imprint with Princeton University Press), the Places Newsletter (email subscription service), a Print Archive of pre-2009 issues, and the Places Summer Writing + Editorial Workshop (an annual educational program). The journal also publishes themed article series and maintains photo galleries. The publication operates as a free, editorially independent resource sustained by academic partners and donor support.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Places Journal (Main Publication) An online journal of public scholarship on architecture, landscape, and urbanism, publishing interdisciplinary scholarship, narrative journalism, essays, criticism, and photography. Available free of charge to individual readers worldwide.
• Places Books

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration8 records

Partnerships

51 partnerships are on record, tiered core, flagship and minor.

• Aarhus School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Located in Aarhus, Denmark.
• Brown University Urban Studies ProgramcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• Cal Poly Pomona College of Environmental DesigncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. A Hispanic-Serving Institution.
• City College of New York Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and PreservationcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Founded in 1881, a leading design school.
• Diné CollegecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. The oldest tribally controlled college in North America, located in the Navajo Nation.
• Florida A&M University School of Architecture and Engineering TechnologycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• Georgia Tech College of DesigncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• Howard University Department of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Architecture program launched in 1911.
• Iowa State University College of DesigncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• MIT School of Architecture + PlanningcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. One of the founding institutions (alongside Berkeley) when Places was established in 1983.
• Monash University Department of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Located in Melbourne, Australia; part of Australia's largest research-intensive university.
• Morgan State University School of Architecture and PlanningcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. A Historically Black College/University.
• National University of Singapore Department of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Asia's premier school of design, architecture, landscape, and urbanism.
• Penn State Stuckeman SchoolcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• Pratt Institute School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Founded in 1887, a global leader in higher education for architecture and design.
• Princeton University School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Also collaborates through the Princeton | Places Prize for urban imagination.
• Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Also collaborates through the 'Voices from Places Journal' interview series on SCI-Arc Channel.
• Tulane School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• Tuskegee University Robert R. Taylor School of Architecture and Construction SciencecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture and DesigncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• University of California-Berkeley College of Environmental DesigncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. One of the founding institutions (alongside MIT) when Places was established in 1983.
• University College Dublin School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental PolicycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and DesigncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Architecture and Department of Landscape ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Home to the first architecture program in a US public university (1867).
• University of Johannesburg Graduate School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Africa's only dedicated post-graduate school of architecture.
• University of Miami School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban PlanningcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• University of Minnesota School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• University of New Mexico School of Architecture + PlanningcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Collaborates through the On the Brinck | Places Prize.
• University of Oregon College of DesigncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Collaborates through the Oregon | Places Prize.
• University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of DesigncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• University of Puerto Rico School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• University of Southern California School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• UT Austin School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and DesigncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• University of Virginia School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• University of Washington College of Built EnvironmentscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal. Recently welcomed into the partner network.
• Virginia Tech College of Architecture, Arts and DesigncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• Washington University in St. Louis Sam Fox School of Design & Visual ArtscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• Wellington School of Architecture – Te Kura Waihanga (Victoria University of Wellington)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• Yale University School of ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner institution providing funding and editorial advice to Places Journal.
• Princeton School of Architecture Urban Imagination CenterflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborates with Places Journal on the Princeton | Places Prize, giving scholars the opportunity to develop longform public scholarship broadly focused on cities and communities.
• Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) and Graham FoundationflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborates with Places Journal on the SAH | Places | Graham Foundation Prize for longform works of public scholarship considering historical and contemporary intersections between race and the built environment.
• UC Berkeley College of Environmental DesignflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborates with Places Journal on the Arcus | Places Prize supporting public scholarship on gender, sexuality, and the built environment.
• University of New Mexico School of Architecture + PlanningflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborates with Places Journal on the On the Brinck | Places Prize for public scholarship on the American Southwest, in the spirit of landscape writer and critic John Brinckerhoff Jackson.
• University of Oregon College of DesignflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborates with Places Journal on the Oregon | Places Prize for public scholarship about power and place, and the relationship of design disciplines to equity and justice.
• Columbia Journalism SchoolflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborates with Places Journal on 'Writing the City,' a prize giving early-career journalists the opportunity to produce ambitious longform urban journalism.
• Princeton University PresscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPlaces Books, published by Princeton University Press in association with Places Journal, expands selected articles into compact, accessible volumes bridging academic discourse and mainstream media.
• National Public Housing MuseumminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCreated an installation based on a Places Journal article on public housing, offered as a case study in how cities can reclaim public housing as a public good.
• Historic Preservation Program at Columbia GSAPPminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Fitch Colloquium 2024 was inspired by a Places Journal series on repair and explored how to rebalance architecture curricula in response to climate change.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Log (Another Architecture Journal): An independent journal of architecture and urbanism publishing criticism and essays. Comparable as a small, editorial-driven, independent design publication with a similar scholarly-public audience.
• e-flux Architecture: An independent, free-to-read online architecture publication with editorial essays, project announcements, and a global readership. Highly comparable in mission, open-access model, and audience to Places Journal.
• Journal of Architectural Education: The peer-reviewed academic journal of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. Comparable as scholarly architecture publication, but is strictly academic/peer-reviewed rather than the public-scholarship format of Places.
• Harvard Design Magazine: A publication affiliated with the Harvard Graduate School of Design that publishes essays on architecture, landscape, and urbanism. Comparable as an academic-anchored, journal-form design publication with similar scholarly-but-public audience.

Emerging players

• Dezeen: A leading digital architecture and design media outlet publishing news, projects, and opinion. Comparable in architecture/urbanism coverage and global digital reach; differs in being a digital-first, ad-supported commercial publication with much higher publishing volume.

Broad incumbents

• Domus: A long-running Italian design and architecture magazine covering architecture, design, and urbanism. Comparable subject coverage, though operates as a large, for-profit, subscription-based international magazine.
• The Architect's Newspaper: A long-running architecture news and criticism publication covering design, urbanism, and practice. Comparable in topical coverage but larger in scope, with advertising-supported commercial operations and a broader professional readership.
• Metropolis Magazine: A design magazine focused on architecture, sustainability, and urbanism. Comparable subject matter and audience; differs in being a for-profit, ad-supported commercial magazine.
• Architectural Review: A long-established global monthly journal of architecture and criticism. Comparable in editorial depth and critical writing on architecture, though it operates a subscription/paid model with a much larger institutional footprint.
• Azure Magazine: A Canadian design and architecture magazine covering contemporary architecture, urbanism, and landscapes. Comparable subject matter, though it is a for-profit, advertising-supported commercial publication.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/placesjournal
• Facebookfacebook.com/placesjournal
• Instagraminstagram.com/places_journal
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/places-journal

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Places Journal