Introduction It is with great delight and pride that we announce that the good ship known as the ARENA Journal of Architectural Research, or AJAR for short, is now launched. A sizeable Editorial Team has created this new journal with help from an even larger and broader Editorial Board that spans around the world and includes many distinguished architects and academics. AJAR is an online Open Access peer-reviewed journal for all kinds of design research and scholarly research within the architectural field, and has been set up by the Architectural Research European Network Association (ARENA). This research network was established in late-2013 by leading researchers from 24 architectural schools across Europe, and since then the number of institutions involved has expanded to 30 schools and is rising steadily. ARENA now offers a shared platform that aims to promote, support, develop and disseminate high-quality research in all fields of architecture in the widest sense, including also its links to interior design, landscape architecture and urban design/urbanism. From the outset, the members of ARENA wanted above all to create a brand new online journal that would support the culture of European architectural research, especially by encouraging the exploration of emerging and transdisciplinary/interdisciplinary research fields. Today, with the launch of AJAR, we now have a major opportunity to exchange important ideas, communicate innovative forms of research, and generally strengthen the links between universities and architectural practices in Europe, as well as internationally. As is typical of the latest online journals, AJAR will not publish issues as such; instead we will upload all new material as soon as it has been approved and copy-edited, thereby creating a rolling programme of publication. Articles will be available in HTML for online reading and as PDFs for downloading. A number of key distinguishing features about AJAR ought to be stressed: