We are proud to announce that our master program’s codirector, Carmen Mendoza Arroyo, has been invited to participate in the XX Architecture and Urbanism Biennial of Chile for her socio-spatial approach to informal settlement upgrading.
Organised by Colegio de Arquitectos de Chile, this year’s Biennial is entitled Diálogos Impostergables, or “Unpostponable Dialogues”, expressing an urgent call to professionals in the field of architecture and urbanism to engage with social, political and environmental concerns. The theme focuses in particular on the need “to work with those who reside in the margins and who have not seen their necessities and aspirations reflected in their urban environment,” considering that it is fundamental to generate a dialogue between the different forces that shape our cities, establish a connection with countries of the Global South and include those who have been exclused throughout history.
Voids as Places of Opportunity. Courtesy Carmen Mendoza Arroyo.
The event will showcase the work of more than 150 architects, researchers, activists and political institutions and universities from around the world. Our codirector Carmen Mendoza Arroyo will present her unique methodological approach to informal settlement upgrading, which builds on the existing—and often ignored—social infrastructure of informal communities to reinterpret informality in a creative way, combining bottom-up participatory mapping of the socio-spatial traits of the settlements with technical urban design methods.
The biennal will take place from October 26 to November 8 in the Parque Cultural in Valparaiso, Chile.