Contemporary Discourses, Materialities, and Spatial Justice in the Architecture, Urbanism, and Landscape of the Americas
The challenge of reflecting on tradition and innovation in the context of the Americas, territories marked by technological transformations, environmental crises, and profound social inequalities, requires questioning the role of design disciplines such as architecture, urbanism, and landscape design in the 21st century. This panel proposes to build a frame of reference on the recent processes of knowledge production inherent to these disciplines, considering critical discourses, new environmental-material realities, and spatial justice as interrelated dimensions from which paths open up for professional positioning and the meaning of inhabiting the Americas in the contemporary world.
Discourses
Architectural, urban, and landscape projects are not limited to technical representation; they constitute forms of discourse that shape worldviews, drive social transformations, and express positions toward life. In this sense, the project can be understood as a symbolic device that is interpreted and circulated through multiple techniques and media.
While tools such as plans and rendered images remain fundamental, writing, narratives, photography, and other cultural languages expand the discursive field. These media allow critical and speculative dimensions to be activated, even when institutional logics tend to neutralize content.
Architecture, urbanism, and landscape are thus positioned as active cultural practices, negotiated between intention, representation, and reception. This section invites reflection on discourses as the construction of meaning, capable of narrating the present and projecting future imaginaries for the Americas.
Materialities
In the context of technological acceleration and environmental urgency, these disciplines face profound transformations in their modes of production. Digital technologies and sustainability requirements redefine the material possibilities of the project and raise new questions about human settlements.
Professional instrumentalization, driven by global standardization, contrasts with the need to recognize cultural and territorial diversity. In this scenario, sustainability and human mediation are key to guiding ethical decisions: prioritizing needs, thinking about dwelling, and defining the world we wish to build.
Materialities can be approached from two notions: material as a constructive resource and materiality as a cultural and sensory experience that connects people with their environment. This relational dimension is central to an architecture focused on processes, cycles, and connections with ecosystems and communities. Works exploring relationships between technique, sustainability, material culture, and design experimentation, addressing local conditions and global challenges, are invited.
Spatial Justice
Spatial justice allows us to rethink the role of these disciplines in the face of territorial inequalities and the climate crisis. Communities cease to be mere users to be recognized as active agents in the production of space.
Increasingly, spatial practices incorporate participatory and situated approaches that respond to problems such as informality or environmental vulnerability. These actions seek to address immediate needs and strengthen community capacities and social sustainability.
Works on territorial conflicts and inequalities are invited, as well as strategies and policies that contribute to a more equitable distribution of spatial resources, articulating technical and local knowledge to promote more inclusive ways of dwelling.
