English versions of the following articles are available online

Title: The Matsés Maloca. Construction of a collective dwelling in the Amazon
Author: Samuel Bravo Silva. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2009. He has taught at the UC School of Architecture, Chile. His work has been published in ARQ, CA, Landscape World Magazine and Casabella. In 2017, he won the Wheelwright Prize awarded by Harvard GSD for his research “Projectless: architecture of informal settlements”.
Abstract: Detached from civilization, Amazonian tribes relate to nature in ways difficult for us to understand. It is not a nature to preserve nor one to extract resources from; rather, it is literally an ecological way of life: a nature with which one lives, and in which the projectless building appears as a way of humanizing an environment without the need to exploit it.
Keywords: ecology; vernacular; projectless; report; Perú.
[read more…]

Title: Plant life
Author: Rosetta S. Elkin. Bachelor of Fine Arts, Concordia University, Canada, 1997. Master of Landscape Architecture, University of Toronto, Canada, 2004. She is committed to design as a means to address the risk, injustice, and instability brought about by planetary climate disintegration. Elkin is the author ofTiny Taxonomy(Actar, 2017). Elkin’s work has been exhibited at the Victory and Albert Museum, Les Jardins de Metis, Chelsea Festival, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and featured in publications includingJournal of Landscape Architecture, New Geographies, Harvard Design MagazineandLotus International. She is Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and Faculty Associate at Harvard Arnold Arboretum, United States. Stephannie Fell. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2012. MA Architectural History, the Bartlett, UCL, 2018. Photography studies at Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2013-14). Currently enrolled in the Architectural & Urban History & Theory MPhil/PhD at the Bartlett, UCL. She is co-editor of the books Working Papers (2018) and Stadium (2018), and was director of contents for ‘STADIUM’ the Chilean Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale. She is Adjunct Professor at the School of Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Francisco Quintana, Architect and Master in Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2010. Master in Design Studies: Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology concentration, Harvard University, United States, 2014. He is co-editor of the books Public Agenda: Architecture > City > Development (Cientodiez, 2009), Project City: Valparaíso (ARQ, 2015) and ARQ Docs: Neil Brenner (ARQ, 2016), among others. He is Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Abstract: Plants are much more than a green stamp that we add to our projects: they are living beings. But do we consider them as such? In this interview, Rosetta Elkin warns us about the dangers and misunderstandings that “plant blindness” entails, while inviting us to challenge the industrial parameters by which we understand, design, and work with plant life..
Keywords: ecology; landscape; processes; interview; life.
[read more…]

Title: Reclaiming Plant Architecture
Author: Sylvia Lavin. BA, Barnard College, Columbia University, MA, Columbia University, PhD, Columbia University (1990). She has received fellowships from the Getty Center, the Kress Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Lavin was a Professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA, where she was Chairperson from 1996 to 2006 and the Director of the Critical Studies MA and PhD program from 2007 to 2017. She has published the books Quatremère de Quincy and the Invention of a Modern Language of Architecture (1992), Form Follows Libido: Architecture and Richard Neutra in a Psychoanalytic Culture (2005), Kissing Architecture (2011), and Flash in the Pan (2015). Lavin is the recipient of an Arts and Letters Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Currently, she is Professor of History and Theory of Architecture, and Co-Director of the Program in Media and Modernity, School of Architecture, Princeton University, USA
Abstract: Plants take root in the earth and grow from there. A building does the same, growing out of its plan. But the analogy goes even further since the plant is also an architectural program. Analyzing the case of the water treatment plant in Los Angeles, USA, this text explores the multiple and unexpected relationships between plants and architecture and, even, the architecture of plants.
Keywords: ecology; building; Los Ángeles; essay; project.
[read more…]

Title: Teatro della Terra Alienata. Australian national pavilion at the XXII Milan Triennial, 2019
Author: GRANDEZA + BAJEZA Constituted by Amaia Sánchez Velasco (1985) and brothers Jorge (1984) and Gonzalo Valiente (1982), together with the architect-writer Miguel Rodríguez Casellas (1966) – BAJEZA -, share much more than an interest in teaching, and a workplace, the UTS of Sydney. Within different perspectives, they have all experienced the new geographies of neoliberal violence and the need to re-politicize the way architecture is thought and exercised. Far from addressing those commonplaces of reinvention and entrepreneurship, or technological determinism that coined innovation as the only way to relevance, the group explores material and discursive qualities of design as a key tool for emancipation.
Abstract: As an ecosystemic effect of climate change, the largest living being on the planet – the great Coral Reef in Australia – started to lose its color in 2016. This episode serves as a lens to look not only at the way in which the heritage of humanity is affected by global warming but also at how governments deny this using false environmental protection strategies in parallel to the continuous promotion of fossil fuels.
Keywords: ecology; land; reef; pavillion; environmental management.
[read more…]

Title: Rachel Carson and her attack on greenery
Author: Romy Hecht. Architect and Master of Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 1998; PhD in History and Theory of Architecture, Princeton University, 2009. She has been a resident researcher at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, Washington, DC (2015, 2017-2018) and guest lecturer at several universities, such as Catholic of Lima (2017), National de Rosario (2016) and Harvard (2012). Her essays have been published in Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes (UK), Harvard Design Magazine (US), New Architecture (China), and ARQ, Trace and Revista 180 (Chile) magazines. In her publications, undergraduate and postgraduate courses and workshops, as well as in the direction of research and Fondecyt projects, Hecht has developed a fundamental work in the theoretical and methodological field for the development of landscape studies in Latin America. She is currently Professor of the UC School of Architecture and prepares a book that discusses the nature of the landscape of Santiago, addressing how it was configured and who oversaw its development and transformation.
Abstract: The awareness about the damage that humanity and its development do to the planet did not arise from nowhere. Moreover, the first alarms were initially dismissed because they questioned the economic progress and the fundamentals of Western culture at large. This article reminds us of the difficulties of one of those first battles for something that seems so obvious to us today: the damage caused by pesticides both to humans as to the planet.
Keywords: ecology; pesticides; suburb; United States; essay.
[read more…]

Title: A Short (Architectural) History of the 20th Century. Review, Celebration and Tribute 40 Years Since“A Short History of America” by Robert Crumb
Author: Luis Miguel Lus Arana. Architect (2001) and Doctor en Arquitectura (2013) from the Universidad de Navarra. Master in Design Studies, with a specialty in Theory and History from the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University (2008). His research focuses on the interactions between architecture, visual arts and mass media, mainly cinema, comic and photography, as well as the history of visionary architecture and urbanism. His research has been published in magazines such as Architectural Design, Project, Progress, Architecture, EGA, or RA Architecture Magazine, among others. His graphic work and his critical texts, published under the pen name of ‘Klaus’, have appeared in media such as Arquine, Architectural Review, A10, Harvard Architectural Design, or Uncube, and has been exhibited in the Art institute of Chicago, the CCE of Mexico City, or Harvard GSD. Since 2012 he is Professor of Architectural Composition in the Departmento de Arquitectura of the Universidad de Zaragoza
Abstract: The last centuries have meant an unprecedented development for humanity. But, at the same time, they have brought a change in the landscapes of the planet, which have gone from natural to man-made. This history, told by the eloquence of a Robert Crumb comic, makes this transformation clear and helps us question our own intervention on the planet.
Keywords: ecology; comix; landscape; drawing; essay.
[read more…]

Title: Pachacamac Park: The Plinth and the Mantle
Author: Pablo Alfaro. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Master in Landscape Architecture, California University Berkeley, USA. Kushal Lachhwani. Architect, School of Planning and Architecture New Delhi; Master in Landscape Architecture, California University Berkeley, USA. Tomás Mckay. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Master in Environmental Plannification, California University Berkeley, USA.
Abstract: Understanding plants as living machines that are not only capable of articulating the connection between air and soil, but also allow to rebuild an ecosystem worn out by development, this project shows that landscape design can trigger processes at an ecosystemic level, avoiding the opposition between nature and technology.
Keywords: Pachacamac; contest; park; edge; sanctuary; archeology.
[read more…]

Title: Lina Bo Bardi and the suburb
Author: Cláudia Costa Cabral. Architecture graduate, Universidade Federal de Rio Grande do Sul (1983), Mestra em Arquitetura, Universidade Federal de Rio Grande do Sul (1996) and Doctora in Teoría e Historia de la Arquitectura – Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (ETSAB, UPC, 2001). She has experience in architecture and urbanism, focusing on architecture design, theory, history and criticism. She was General Coordinator of Docomomo Brasil in the 2012-2013 biennium, and of the Research and Postgraduate Program in Architecture of the Universidade Federal de Rio Grande do Sul, PROPAR-UFRGS (2009-2012; 2015-2018). She is a tenured professor in the Faculdade de Arquitetura de la Universidade Federal de Rio Grande do Sul, in undergraduate and graduate studies and presides the Research Group of Modern Architecture Studies in Latin America.
Abstract: n a time before the liberalization of the land, there was a period when architects believed that an alternative model to the countryside and the city could be designed. In this essay, we see an unknown project by Lina Bo Bardi suburban development project that allows us to understand how this great architect thought about the relationship between architecture and nature.
Keywords: ecology; urbanization; Brazil; house; essay.
[read more…]

Title: Architecture and Ecology: Santiago’s Cementerio General as a case in point
Author: Wilfred Kuehn. Architect, designer, and curator, he directs the Department of Spatial Design at the Vienna University of Technology. From 2006 to 2012 he was Professor for Exhibition Design and Curatorial Practice at the Karlsruhe University for Arts and Design/ZkM. With Kuehn Malvezzi he has earned a reputation in museum architecture and exhibition design for projects such as Documenta 11, the extension of the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum der Gegenwart in Berlin, the Julia Stoschek Collection in Düsseldorf, the extension and museography of the Museum Belvedere in Vienna. Kuehn Malvezzi has participated in the Manifesta 7 in Trento; in the Venice Architecture Biennial 2006, 2012, and 2014; and the Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2015 and 2017. Kim Courrèges. Architect, Master in Architecture, Ecole d’Architecture de la Ville et des Territoires Marne-la-Vallée, France (2010). Master in Mathematics and Informatics, Paris University 7 – Denis Diderot (2005). She is a Plan Común partner since 2014. She has lectured at the Swiss Architecture Museum (2016, 2017) and University Católica de Chile (2018). Her texts have been published in AA Files and San Rocco. She currently teaches at Ecole d’Architecture de la Ville et des Territoires Marne-la-Vallée. Felipe de Ferrari. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (2010). Cofounder of 0300TV, OnArchitecture and Plan Común Arquitectos. Co-editor of the books ARQ Docs Pier Vittorio Aureli (2014), ARQ Docs Atelier Bow-Wow (2015) and Lugares Comunes: Recoleta-Independencia (2015). He has lectured at Barcelona, Sao Paulo, Mendrisio, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Haus der Architektur Graz, Museum of Architecture and Design of Slovenia, Swiss Architecture Museum and University of Zagreb. His texts have been published in 2G, AA Files, Architectural Review, ARCH+, Materia and San Rocco.
Abstract: Architecture must be understood as a strategic attitude regarding space and resources. As a discipline that is arguably as old as humankind, architecture is an issue of common sense: a collective and strategic knowledge that is and could be applied by everyone, in any community, environment or culture, through a series of mechanisms, devices, structures and forms.
Keywords: ecology; city; public space; essay; cementeries.
[read more…]

Title: Geography, city and the construction of a landscape. Project for the Southern Metropolitan Park, Cerros de Chena
Author: Teodoro Fernández. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 1972. Founder of Teodoro Fernández Arquitectos, where he has collaborated with projects such as the Ministry of Public Works in La Serena, the Parque Bicentenario in Vitacura, the Parque Quinta Normal, or the Fiscal Stadium in Talca, among others. He was awarded the National Architecture Prize of Chile in 2014. He is currently a professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Arturo Lyon. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2004. Master of Architecture, Design Research Laboratory, Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, 2007. Co-founder of Lyon Bosch Arquitectos in Santiago. He has worked on projects in China, Dubai, Uk, and Singapore, among which we can mention the Dubai Financial Market and Soho Galaxy with Zaha Hadid Architects, London. He is currently a professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Danilo Martic Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 1998. Master in Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania School of Design, Usa, 2005. He has collaborated with Teodoro Fernández in projects for the Parque Bicentenario, the remodeling of Quinta Normal and the Parque de la Ciudadanía, among others. He is currently a professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Abstract: Ecosystems operate at large scales. That is why landscape-level interventions are better than buildings to achieve an ecological impact through design. This project is an example of this, because it addresses the problem of the urban park not only from its design but also from its ability to generate ecosystems that help its own maintenance over time, without neglecting the uses it should serve.
Keywords: ecology; landscape; processes; Project; park.
[read more…]

Title: What Ecology?
Author: Tatiana Carbonell. Profesora Instructora, Escuela de Arquitectura Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
[read more…]

Title: Enabling Basic Services for Patagonia Station
Author: Germán Guzmán. Architect and Master in Landscape Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2018. He has participated as teaching assistant in the School of Architecture Uc and currently works as a research assistant of the Fondecyt project: Desmontando el plano de Ernesto Ansart y el plan de transformación de Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna. Francisco Chateau. Architect and Master in Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2002. Master in Architecture and Sustainability: Design Tools and Environmental Control Techniques, ETSA, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, 2010. He is a PhD candidate at the Departamento de Proyectos arquitectónicos of the same institution. He currently works on the PLUs-Chile project and is the director of the UC Biofabrication laboratory. Diego Arroyo Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2003. Master in Architectural Sciences, Sidney University, 2013, where he was the recipient of the David Rowe award. His work has been published in national and international indexed journals. He is currently a professor at Universidad Católica de Chile and an associate at Lira Arquitectos Asociados. Felipe Elton. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2017. He was an assistant of the UC Master’s course “Técnicas de construcción en madera” in 2017. He is currently a contributor to the Patagonia UC Station and works as an architect at Consultora Austral (Puerto Montt).Cristián Schmitt. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2003. Master in Advanced Studies in Architecture, British Columbia University, Canada, 2012. He currently serves as a teacher in the Technology Area of UC School of Architecture and Works at Centro UC de Innovación en Madera.
Abstract: The study of ecosystems comes with a paradox: the observer – who is also a living being – can modify the object of study by getting involved in it. In the case of a Research Station within an ecosystem, such paradox becomes the main problem to be addressed by the project: how to position architecture among an ecological environment that is not used to it.
Keywords: ecology; infrastructure; design; Project; ecosystems.
[read more…]

Title: Natural Sublime, Technological Sublime. Debates around the appreciation of Pilmaiquén river’s nature, Chile (1920-1945)
Author: Rodrigo Booth. Historian and Doctor of Arquitectura y Estudios Urbanos, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2003 and 2009. Between 2009 and 2011 he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris and in 2013 he was a visiting professor at the Université de Strasbourg. He has developed research on the history of architecture, the city and the territory, with particular attention to mobility and tourism technologies. He has also researched the history of industrial photography in Chile. He is currently an assistant professor in the Departmento de Arquitectura of Universidad de Chile.
Abstract: The debate on whether nature is at the service of man or not has been at the forefront in recent decades. Climate change has revalued the importance of that nature that humankind once sought to tame. Through the case of a hydroelectric power station in southern Chile, this text analyzes the ways in which the vision of nature has changed in our country: as a tourist destination, as a source of energy, as raw material and, recently, as a monument.
Keywords: ecology; land; landscape aesthetics; essay; heritage.
[read more…]

Editorial. Social warming

The climate changed. A few months ago, when we decided to dedicate an issue to ecology, we never thought we would have to do it in a country with such a rarefied environment. After relentlessly hearing the word sustainability, we forgot to attend to the most obvious: the system’s inability to sustain itself. The Chilean spring of this 2019 refocused the conversation and rolled back the horizon to the mid-1970s, when, while in Chile human rights were violated, the climate crisis emerged as a matter of concern among scientists around the planet. As a result of the uprising, the country was forced to cancel its role as host of the COP25, the Un annual event where politicians and experts meet to discuss measures to mitigate climate change. A few months ago, when we published the call for this issue of ARQ – and following the chromatic analogy of David Harvey ⁽¹⁹⁹⁸⁾ between the green of money and that of trees – we established the association between economics and ecology, outlining a causal link between the development system of the last centuries and climate change. We were aware of the violence with which humans have treated the planet. But we had forgotten, however, the structural violence with which we treat our own less favored people.

A few months ago, with the certainty given by our precarious apparatus of knowledge and references, we knew that what is in danger of disappearing due to global warming is not the planet, but us as a species. That is precisely why we argued that the poorest would be the main victims of climate change. But what we failed to take into account – or even consider – was that, with or without climate change, they were already victims of this system.

A few months ago, we were in mourning for the fires in the Amazon forest in Brazil or in the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Today, we are stunned by burning buildings and flaming barricades blocking the streets in which we move daily. And still, we failed to realize that the destruction caused by the fire is as violent as the environment in which thousands of families live in our cities, far from the spotlight and from where smoke is not seen.

In the face of these situations, magazines are slow instruments. They cannot and should not respond to contingency. However, the content of this issue of ARQ may very well be a mirror that reflects in another way what is happening. For example, we are blind to plants – as Rosetta Elkin argues – in the same way we are blind to injustices. And the disdain we show for water treatment plants – in Silvia Lavin’s article – is the same we show for economic inequality. The chemical strategies used in the United States to keep suburban gardens green – in Romy Hecht’s text – are a correlation of the ones used to maintain ‘public order’ and disperse protesters in Chilean cities (pesticides in the first case, tear gas in the second). And the spectacularized inefficiency with which the Australian government defends the Great Barrier Reef – in Grandeza’s proposal – is precisely what has had Chile plunged into uncertainty for weeks. Likewise, the relationship with nature as a quarry for resources- in Booth’s argument – is visible in labor relations that understand the worker as an exploitable human ‘resource,’ which inevitably leads to the breakdown of social cohesion. And the development that devastates natural landscapes – in Klaus’ drawings – is the same one that destroys human nature and leads to alienation. And, unfortunately, we could continue.

These analogies are possible because the social outbreak shares the same structure as the ecological catastrophe: both have been slow-cooked, making them almost imperceptible until they finally burst and paralyze everyday life as we knew it. Both, too, had been announcing themselves for a long time, giving small signals that we chose to ignore.

What can architecture say about this? We do not know. Hopefully, architects will be up to the task and not only look from the heights, as it became the custom. There is space in the debate for a new constitution where we can contribute to rethinking our relationship with the planet.

We must remember, however, that the constitutional debate by itself does not fix climate change. The fact that we have stopped talking about its threat does not make it disappear. It is still very much there, inadvertently advancing while we stare stunned at the fire burning our cities. And we should not forget either that neither animals nor plants were the ones that coined concepts such as ecology or economics. We, the humans, are the cause of everything, be it good or bad. We were, in fact, the cause of global warming. Let’s hope it does not burn the last resort we have: our own humanity and its rights.

Notes
HARVEY, David. «What’s Green and Makes the Environment go Round?» En: The Cultures of Globalization. Fredric Jameson & Masao Miyoshi (Eds.). Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1998: 327-355.