Placing five low-income families from a settlement in southern Lima, Peru, at the center of local and global design. That is the vision behind CIUDADES [en] VISIBLE.

CIUDADES [en] VISIBLE will be the flagship competition of MUTUO, and this is its pilot edition. MUTUO is a collaborative project dedicated to the dream of decent housing, founded in 2016 by Mar Layseca and Sebastian Paredes Smith, both architects who graduated from the School of Architecture of the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas.

The competition focuses on designing homes for five low-income families within the 3 de Diciembre settlement in Lurín. The Acarraz, Huamán, López, Salazar, and Teccse families will be the protagonists of this architectural challenge.

The Mirador La Cocha Botanical Garden proposal by students Germán López, María Echeverry, and Julián Villescas was awarded second place in the ninth edition of the steel design competition for architecture students in Colombia (Alacero Colombia), which focused this year on a greenhouse pavilion for a botanical park.

Under a unified structural concept, the project is divided into three blocks—an entrance building, a circulation ring, and greenhouse pavilions—and aims to establish itself as "a space of high educational and research value that seeks to promote the preservation and conservation of representative and threatened botanical species" in the Colombian department of Nariño.

Media and technology have been revolutionizing content creation across diverse niches, and architecture is no exception. YouTube channels, television shows, and specialized playlists on architecture and urbanism are just a few examples. Over the last few years, however, podcasts have emerged as a powerful alternative. Unlike other media, podcasts are an audio-only format shared across a wide range of platforms—from specialized websites to blogs. Today, there are countless listening options available, both Brazilian (as listed below) and international, as previously published by ArchDaily.

Finding specialized podcasts can be a daunting task. To help, we have gathered a list of nine Brazilian podcast channels for you to listen to. Put on your headphones and check them out:

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The Son Jarocho Documentation Center is a cultural venue in the city of Jáltipan de Morelos. Dating back to 1998, its former headquarters suffered severe structural damage during the 2017 earthquakes in Mexico, which affected several regions. As a result, municipal authorities determined that it was necessary to rebuild the facility.

Bringing this project to fruition required the involvement of various institutions and fundraising events. Among these was a campaign led by Mexican singer Natalia Lafourcade titled 'Un Canto por México' in Anaheim, California.

Brazil's National Urban Mobility Policy (PNMU), the requirement for municipal mobility plans, investments in cycling infrastructure, not to mention the new mobility services that hit the streets every day—the sector has undoubtedly made significant strides in recent years. Nevertheless, numerous challenges remain.

Cristóbal Caro presents a photographic exhibition titled "Chairs: Micro-Architecture in Public Space," which seeks to link objects scattered throughout the urban fabric with the implicit symbols and traces they hold.

Listed as a World Heritage Site, the Historic Center of Salvador, Bahia, in the heart of the Pelourinho neighborhood, is home to the city's Cathedral Basilica, which dates back to the 17th century. One of Brazil's most significant sacred buildings, the basilica underwent a three-year-and-eight-month restoration process. Beyond returning its celebrated features to public view, the intervention revealed spaces and artifacts previously unknown or long thought lost.

Mark Wigley asserts that architects, rather than builders, are talkers. "Architects do not make solid objects. They make discourses about objects," Wigley argues in “Typographic Intelligence” (2002). This becomes particularly relevant when linked to philosopher Michel Foucault's concept of discourse. In *The Order of Discourse*, Foucault argues that discourses consist of a series of statements or propositions that communicate a certain idea, defining everything that can be said about a topic by shaping a specific way of understanding reality.

Discourses, then, are not merely a specific glossary of words; rather, they encompass the meanings or ideologies conveyed through them. With this in mind, I want to suggest that architecture can be understood as a discipline in which a set of discourses operates, managed by a regulatory body that constantly validates which of them generate architecture and which do not. When examining the discourses that operate within architecture, we find that several can coexist and justify one another, while others ignore and exclude each other—shaping different statements of truth. There may even be discursive strategies that appear extinct due to disuse or deliberate concealment.

On this occasion, architect Rodrigo Rieiro Díaz, from the ARKRIT Collective, presents an article that explores how certain contemporary architects have refused to hide building scars resulting from material processes in rehabilitation projects, in a bid to emphasize the pre-existing structure as an aesthetic asset.

While it is true that not painting—or covering with joint covers—the marks of material processes during building adaptive reuse projects represents a financial saving, there seems to be a desire among certain contemporary architects that goes far beyond simply cutting a line item from the budget.

Indeed, there is a contemporary tradition—the reuse of industrial buildings as art spaces—where this practice is common. This model of an exhibition space, halfway between a gallery and an artist's studio and geared toward a young, urban audience, already has a history of at least forty years. Yet there is a certain consecration of the method in its adoption by the city councils of major European cities for their cultural institutions, and in the highly favorable reception of these interventions in academic and professional circles.

The team comprising Francesca Fuentes, Juan Andrés Hoffmann, and Kevin Gómez has been awarded an honorable mention in the XXXII CAP Chile Competition. Designed for the Tres Puentes Wetland in Punta Arenas, the project, known as "Flores del Humedal" (Wetland Flowers), seeks to generate "a physical link between the isolated territory and society, in order to facilitate interaction, knowledge, research, and conservation," according to the authors.

The competition jury explained that it is a "project that took steel structure to a highly creative level and challenged the program, proposing a new way of observing nature. At the same time, it generates a profound relationship with the territory for wetland observation."

Following the passing of the prolific Ecuadorian architect Rubén Moreira (1939-2018) last Friday, July 13, in Quito, the team at Revista Trama—composed of Evelia Peralta, Rolando Moya Tasquer, and Rómulo Moya Peralta—shared the following words in tribute to the historic architect, academic, and professional association president.

We bid farewell to Rubén Moreira with deep sorrow, profoundly saddened by his passing at a time when he still had so much to ponder, develop, give, and live.  

We will not forget the human being and the architect who left an indelible mark on Ecuadorian architecture. We can attest to his profound humanity; he was supportive, a loyal friend, and consistent with his ideals and convictions. We crossed paths with him on various occasions over more than 42 years, as he always sought to contribute to a more just and beautiful construction of society, cities, architecture, institutions, education, and humanity.

Today, it is estimated that in Brazil alone, 30 million tons of waste are deposited annually in landfills, with São Paulo alone sending 14,000 tons of solid waste to these sites every day. [1] Unsurprisingly, landfills occupy vast tracts of land that continue to expand, posing a critical challenge for nearly every city. But what can be done once landfills reach capacity and close? Is it possible to breathe new life into these mountains of waste? What are the possibilities and necessary precautions?

The 16th-century Monastery of Santo Domingo “San Pablo”—located in downtown Oaxaca between Independencia and Hidalgo streets—was recently transformed into the San Pablo Academic and Cultural Center (2012) through a series of interventions by the architecture firm led by Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela Carrillo.

The team at '3 Construcciones' has developed a sustainable housing construction system based on frames and recovered plastic modules, aiming to establish a mass-scale, low-cost, and low-energy method to address Argentina's housing deficit.

Late last November, we published the winners of the second call for graduation projects in Colombia—also known as undergraduate theses—for which we received 70 submissions from 14 cities and 29 universities. Ultimately, nine projects passed the three evaluation stages, standing out for addressing current pressing issues, developing in-depth research analyses, and posing challenges for both urban and rural contexts, just as in 2016.

In this feature, we take an in-depth look at Boundary and Architecture: Relationship Between Interior and Exterior Space, a proposal developed by John Pineda Torres, Juan Salamanca Carrillo, Javier Pachón Romero, and Nathalia Sánchez Rojas, all graduates of the Universidad Piloto de Colombia.

After evaluating 94 submissions from across Colombia, ArchDaily announced the six winning projects of the third ArchDaily Thesis Competition in Colombia. The selection, chosen by our editorial jury, includes built works, historical research, and master plans: ranging from a rural residential prototype to an in-depth study of the *Edificio de Renta*, a popular residential format in Bogotá between the 1940s and 1970s.

For this edition, we introduced a new evaluation stage: a second jury made up of prominent Colombian architects was tasked with choosing the Grand Winner 2018. The members were Lina Toro, Carlos Cano (OPUS, Medellín), and Jorge Noreña (Ruta 4, Pereira).

"While architecture requires rigor, dedication, and communication skills, it also demands strengthening connections with urbanism and landscape, as well as with other disciplines that make transformative ideas viable," comments Carlos Cano in the jury's evaluation, which we invite you to read below.

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In this second installment on the ongoing transformations in New York City, Kosme de Barañano focuses on the project that, at the turn of the 21st century, triggered one of the city's most profound transformations: the High Line park.

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BASE Studio, a design and research practice focused on innovative architectural systems, has designed "Flocking Tejas," a pavilion made of handcrafted clay tiles. The installation emerges as an architectural system that expands the possibilities of handmade materials and adaptive systems, ultimately creating an intervention designed to spark the curiosity of its users.

The project was a finalist in the YAP_Constructo 8 competition, directed by architects Marcelo Sarovic and Jeannette Plaut.

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Every now and then, it is inevitable to pause, set everything aside, and simply think about the future. This necessary imaginative exercise—performed countless times throughout the history of fiction—allows us, among other things, to recognize where we stand and understand where we are going. As such, it becomes a relevant and compelling practice to apply to our own transformative and visionary discipline. We proposed this challenge to several Chilean architects, inviting them to speculate not just on the near future—already difficult to navigate in today's liquid modernity—but on a more distant horizon, framed by the question: what will be the role of architects in Chile over the next 25 years?

Their opinions and commentary, emphasizing different facets of architectural practice, share several common threads by connecting current issues and questions relevant to the 21st-century city: the human dimension—the ethical, the collective, the common—and the urban realm, in their relationships and forms of organization.

Over the past two decades, digital technologies have been changing the way we use and relate to spaces—especially public ones—which are increasingly mediated by networks and devices that allow us to position ourselves in new ways. In May of this year, during the global week of events for Museum Day, promoted by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the theme Hyperconnected museums: New approaches, new publics was adopted as the motto for the 2018 edition's debate series. This initiative aimed to discuss the relationship between museums as institutions and society through the lens of digital connectivity, both in terms of physical space organization and interaction with the public.

In the wake of the debates held in museums worldwide, it became clear that institutions are increasingly focused on building a network with their audience, a feat made possible through technology. Indeed, conceiving an exhibition, as well as the museum as an object within the urban environment, also means imagining the possibilities for audience interaction. This makes it inevitable to compare how viewers used to relate to artworks with how this dynamic has shifted in the so-called “Selfie Era.”

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In 2011, an improvement plan for the Historic Center of Mexico City for the years 2011–2016 was presented to UNESCO. Conceived as a joint initiative between civil society, private investment, and the government, the project led to the revitalization of a large part of the historic center and the social and physical recovery of many of the neighborhood's properties.

Mexico City's architectural legacy extends far beyond its Historic Center, and while the initial plan greatly benefited this area, many buildings both inside and outside Colonia Centro remain untouched. Following the 2017 earthquake, damaged buildings joined the growing list of properties already abandoned, vacant, or severely deteriorated throughout the city.

Among these, we highlight those whose rehabilitation and subsequent adaptive reuse would have the greatest impact on their surroundings, given their symbolic, architectural, and physical value.

Whether from the perspective of a French tourist, the narrative of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, or as the starting point of Marco Polo's pioneering journeys in his Travels, the city of Venice is part of an immeasurable global literary repertoire, occupying the role of a mysterious and beautiful object that intrigues anyone who sets out to experience it. It features in art and history books when the focus is on the great works of architecture and visual arts the city holds, or when there is interest in the divergent and legendary narratives surrounding its origin. In fiction, the calm aura of its canals, the narrow alleyways, and the colors and textures of its landscape serve as a backdrop for a myriad of imagined stories.

The social initiatives of Ecuadorian architect David Regalado Ojeda in the city of Loja demonstrate a departure from the autonomous architectural project, addressing collective formal identity through a park built from recycled materials, where history is transformed into play and learning.

Artists, volunteers, and the local community collaborated on the project with zero financial investment: everything was recycled and built through community support. 

Below, a few words from architect David Regalado Ojeda:

The team comprising Diego Concha, Tomás Aguirre, and Trinidad Hermosilla (Universidad Finis Terrae) has won first place in the XXXII CAP Chile Competition. Designed for the Quillayes tailings of the Los Pelambres mining company (Coquimbo Region), the project seeks to "recover and reuse mining waste through the use of highly mineral-resistant plants for the reduction and future mitigation of environmental risks on the site," according to the authors.

The competition jury explains that the project proposes "a new way of conserving, actively addressing environmental issues frequently present in the territory. It takes existing elements as a starting point and combines them with a series of contrasting geometries resolved using steel."