The social-ecological potential of architecture: lessons from conversations with women architects in contemporary Latin America

This study focused on exploring social architecture in the global south, led by women architects, specifically from Latin America. The purpose of this study is analysing Architecture through social-environmental lenses. The main question is how the design process of architects in Latin America using participatory methodologies contributes to creating future imaginaries that engage with social justice and environmental concerns. The questions are addressed by analysing feminist theories such as Feminist Standpoint theories, Conflict Analysis and Anthropology of Sustainability. Ten Latin American women architects were asked to participate in online interviews for the fieldwork. The findings of the study are in all the steps of the process of Architecture: research, design and building. One of the main aspects found was situated knowledge (Haraway, 2004) methodologies, entangled with various Negotiation techniques employing a basic needs approach (Galtung, 1979). In the design phase, expanding the creative mindset by connecting thinking with action; the awareness of enjoying daily ordinary routines was mentioned as crucial (Haraway, 2004; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017), and narrowing the design with a conscious limitation of resources. Finally, the redistribution and recognition of invisibilized tasks was vital in the building phase.