Landscapes of Care
Public housing across multiple geographies: crossing theories and practices
Editors: Maria Neto (UBI-FAUP), Paz Nuñez Martí (UAH-ETSAM)
Guest Editors: Igea Troiani (LSBU), Joan Mac Donald (U. Chile), Jorge Tárrago Mingo (ETSAUN)
Sophia Journal is currently accepting submissions for its third thematic cycle “Landscapes of Care” focused on “Public housing across multiple geographies: crossing theories and practices”
Abstract deadline: 1 of December 2023
Selected authors will be notified by the 11 of January 2024
1st Manuscript deadline: 11 of March 2024
2st Manuscript deadline: 1 of September 2024
Deadline for Conference Presentation: 10 of September 2024
International Conference (dtbc): 15 and 16 of September 2024
3rd Manuscript deadline (Journal): 5 of October 2024
Publication date (tbc): by December 2024
Sophia Journal’s third thematic, “Landscapes of Care”, addresses research, projects, experiences, and contemporary photographic and visual practices that focus on how architecture, understood in a broad sense, can help to heal the relationships between man and habitat, as well as the socio-environmental crisis that the planet is experiencing.
The concept of “Landscapes of Care” has increasingly been adopted by diverse areas of study, from health geography to the arts and architecture, transposed here as the action of the social state in the housing sector, which generates a relationship of care between the state and society, framed by economic, social, and cultural rights. In this call, we are interested in investigations and visual narratives that help us understand and document practices outside the dominant narratives, which promote the right to housing but also the right to the city, calling on the city and the territory as living and inclusive organisms, recognizing the importance of public resources and social responses, participatory processes, and co- responsibility, for global sustainability.
This issue, focusing on public housing, allows contributions to be centered on a dynamic reading of the city that is conditional and conditioned by housing typology. Combining architecture, public housing, habitat, and urban planning, we are convoking works that explore an interpretative narrative about housing and those who live in it, pilot projects with communities of practice capable of generating strategic visions about the possible future of city and territory, housing and the lives it (trans)forms, in this ontological relationship between the Man and house.
Public housing should be an example of innovative practices, whether in design or urban and territorial development. However, most interventions carried out through housing policies or specific and isolated actions on public housing need to be sufficiently known and disseminated by authorities, technicians, and researchers to produce broad knowledge and debate. Our objective is to make known and amplify these practices that intertwine theory and action and explore how photography, surveys, testimonies, and documentaries can be used as significant research instruments in the socio-economic, political, historical, technical, and ecological dimensions of social housing, the city and the territory, revealing good practices and models to study. Launching a critical look at city-making from its dominant program – housing – we also intend to establish relationships of continuity and/or rupture, alignments, and/or gaps between housing and urban, socio-political, and architectural thought nationally and internationally.
In this call for articles and visual essays for this issue of Sophia Journal Vol. 9 | Landscapes of Care. Social housing across multiple geographies: Crossing theories and practices, we invite authors to submit theoretical work, records of experiences in social housing programs, and visual essays on initiatives or pilot programs in public housing, where photography, graphic recording, testimony, and the documentary are present in a significant way and allow adding a differentiating layer for its understanding and recording. Descriptive, analytical, and interpretative projects offer a unique perception and new knowledge about housing, its residents, and the city, and its ability to respond to and reflect local conditions and be an element of socio-territorial cohesion. Projects that are critical territories capable of expanding our understanding of architecture and social landscape in terms of their language, location, residents, and neighborhood.
We are also interested in photography and film work that allows us to acknowledge the social and political dimension of architecture and landscape and understand architecture as Alvar Aalto did, “as a great synthetic process of combining thousands of definite human functions,” together with Donna Haraway’s focus on human and non-human interaction – new “nature cultures” capable of contributing to a greater understanding of the potential of architecture and landscape for a more ecological and sustainable balance and interaction between architecture and nature.
Submission instructionsTo submit your proposal, please send a 500-word abstract (including references and a maximum of five images) and a short bio for each author (up to 70 words each) by the 1st of December, 2023. Submission of abstracts is done through our OJS platform by registering and submitting at: https://www.up.pt/revistas/index.php/sophia/index Selected authors will be notified by the 11 of January 2024 and will be expected to deliver a full paper (between 3000 to 6000 words) or a visual essay (length between 6 to 8 pages, plus text between 500 to 1000 words) by the 11 of March 2024. Please note that all theoretical papers will be subject to peer review. The other modalities of submissions we publish (visual essays, interviews, and critical reviews) are not subjected to peer review.
Acceptance of an abstract in any of these modalities does not guarantee publication.
BIOGRAPHIES
IGEA TROIANI
Igea Troiani (PhD) is a Professor of Architecture and Head of Division for Architecture at London South Bank University (LSBU). She is an architect and filmmaker with almost 30 years-experience of working in a university, architecture practice and universities gained in the UK (London, Oxford and Plymouth), China (Suzhou), Germany (Münster) and Australia (Brisbane and Melbourne). Her three key areas of research are 1) the social production of architecture; 2) architecture and media (focusing on publishing and filmmaking) and 3) architectural labour, neoliberalism and sustainable ecologies. She studies architecture from transdisciplinary perspectives to determine the conditions in which architecture is, and architects are, socially, culturally and economically produced. Her books include The Politics of Making (2017/2007); Transdisciplinary Urbanism and Culture (2017); Architecture Filmmaking (2019); Visual Research Methods in Architecture (2021); and Spaces of Tolerance (2021), and Work-life Balance in Architecture (in press).
JOAN MAC DONALD
Joan MacDonald is an architect and expert in housing and urban planning, especially in vulnerable contexts. She was the first architect to head the Housing Department at the UC School of Architecture and the first woman to assume the position of Undersecretary of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning (1990-94). Throughout her career, she has fulfilled different urban and housing management leadership roles. Among them, she was a consultant for the Sustainable Development and Human Settlements Division of ECLAC, and between 2000 and 2014, she directed the Latin American Service, African and Asian Popular Housing (SELAVIP). From there, she promoted the execution of more than 500 housing and neighborhood improvement projects for poor urban communities in the developing world.
JORGE TÁRRAGO MINGO
Jorge Tárrago Mingo. Registered Architect. PhD. University of Navarra (2005). He is a Professor of Architecture and collaborates in research and editorial initiatives. He is Director of RA, Revista de Arquitectura. He has published articles in ARQ, Future Anterior, Bauwelt, Rita, PPA, Revista 180, Arquitetura rivista, ZARCH, and he is a regular reviewer for some others. He is author, co-author or editor of several books and book chapters, the most recent being Aguinaga, Echaide, Sobrini. Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura (Pamplona, 2020), awarded at the XV BEAU, and the chapter ‘A Certain Praise for Drawings’ in Approaching Architecture. Three Fields, One Discipline (New York & Oxon, 2023). In 2015 he co-chaired the internacional conference Inter: Photography and Architecture (2016) and the four volumes with the proceedings that were awarded at the XIV BEAU. He founded alcolea+tárrago in 2005. His work has been awarded in more than 20 national and international competitions, published in many magazines and books, and has received several architecture prizes for built work.
MARIA NETO
Maria Neto is an architect, invited assistant professor at DECA-UBI, and researcher at CEAU-FAUP and ICHaB-ETSAM. PhD in Architecture (EA-UAH+ICHaB-ETSAM, 2022) with an individual research scholarship from FTC, worthy of nomination for the Prémio Extraordinário UAH, holds post-graduation in Development of Human Settlements in the Third World (ICHaB/ETSAM) and professional practice in Humanitarian Shelter Coordination (IFRC/UNCHR/Oxford Brookes University). She has collaborated with the UNHCR and the BRC supporting refugees in Kenya and the UK. She was the recipient of the Távora Award, a guest speaker representing Portugal at the 17th International Exhibition of Architecture from the Venice Biennale and selected for the anthology of the Lisbon University Triennial Award. In addition to teaching at DECA-UBI and practicing in her architectural studio with architect Jorge Marum, she has collaborated with IHRU on the program “Da Habitação ao Habitat” within the framework of the New Generation of Housing Policies.
PAZ NUNEZ MARTI
Paz Núñez-Martí (Madrid, 1971) PhD in Architecture (Univ. Politécnica Madrid, 1998); Technical Specialist in Heritage Recovery and Rehabilitation (Univ. Politécnica Madrid, 2000) and Technical Specialist in Development Cooperation (Univ. Politécnica Madrid, 2005). PhD in Architecture (Univ. Politecnica Madrid, 2016) and currently Phd from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, Univ. Alcalá (2002-act). She coordinates the area of Habitat and Territory of the Research Group applied to development cooperation COOPUAH. She has been Technical Advisor to the Madrid City Council for the shanty town settlement of Cañada Real (2015-2019) and currently conducts applied research on spatial justice, urbanism and citizenship from various civic platforms with political impact in the city of Madrid.
For more information access: https://www.up.pt/revistas/index.php/sophia/announcement/view/26