Given that 90% of cities are built without architects and urban planners, who are the real architects imagining and building the world we want to live in? What modes of production, materials, and forms of relationship and social reproduction are practiced by these collectives, pointing the way toward possible, inclusive, diverse, just, and ecological futures? What architectures exist to foster freedom, collaboration, co-responsibility, and care—for oneself, for others, and for the spaces we inhabit?
Various alternatives based on innovative practices (economically, materially, socially, and ecologically) and collective creation have been developed and prototyped, pointing toward democracy in action and emancipatory social processes. Counter-narratives and glimpses of alternative worlds emerge, questioning our relationship with identity, time, labor, desire, care, the other, community, the city, and territory. This variety of alternatives encourages debate on key issues that must be examined and deepened, as well as those concerning the pedagogy and practice of contemporary architecture.
In discussing an architecture for autonomy, we call for the right to the city, the need to build resilience, and the co-production and shared management of the commons. The goal is to understand how to empower the transition from a hegemonic, exclusive, and colonial paradigm toward complex, multiple, inclusive, situated, resilient, and socially, culturally, and ecologically integrated practices—generating affect, value, meaning, and belonging.
