In previous decades, Ediciones ARQ published the first "Compendium ARQ" volumes, focusing on the work of an emerging generation from the 1990s and later, in the mid-2000s, on vacation homes, recognizing a new spirit in Chilean architecture that, at the time, sought to innovate in form and its relationship with the landscape, unique to our national territory.
Today, conditions have changed; architecture is now at the center of debates regarding urban life and collective space, raising new perspectives, approaches, and challenges. Continuing the tradition of promoting innovative architecture by emerging professionals, the third volume of the Compendium ARQ series will be dedicated to buildings that build the city, contributing to the improvement of urban quality of life. The goal is to highlight projects that do not fear confronting the complexities of the urban condition—from citizen demands to those of the real estate market—but rather understand them as part of the richness to which architecture must contribute. In this sense, we want to highlight a new attitude in architectural practice in Chile, characterized by a commitment to complexity and requirements external to the profession, moving away from an interest in self-referential architecture associated with unique commissions in places exempt from the tensions of the contemporary city.
