 Hello everyone, and welcome to the last session of Resilient's Untangled. Before getting started, we would like to remind you that for interpretation, please select the globe icon and select your preferred language. Hola a todos y bienvenidos a la última sesión de Resilient's Untangled. Antes de empezar, nos gustaría recordarles que para interpretación, por favor, seleccionar el incono de idioma en la parte inferior de su pantalla de zoom, para seleccionar su idioma de preferencia. We apologize for all the delays that we have experienced along the way, but it is definitely quite a task to untangle Resilient's in only one session, so welcome everyone. My name is Cristina Davila. I'm a master in urban planning candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. On behalf of LatinGSD, my fellow organizers at LatinGSAP, LatinDOSP, and UPS Design in Latin America, I'd like to thank everybody from joining us in our last sessions of Resilient's Untangled. Throughout the day, we've been able to hear experiences from students, professors, and communities engaging with, and also redefining the concepts of Resilient's. Even though we are aware that untangling Resilient's will definitely take more than one day, we're also very excited to witness how the public has also brought insightful remarks in the previous sessions, elevating these conversations, and even identifying future curses of actions in their own spaces. Now, in the session called Resilient's in Practice, we'll be having Anna Ditch, Rafael Viñoli, Natalia Mosquera, and from Oficina Resilient's Urbana, Adriana Chavez, Victor Rico, and Elena Tudela. They'll be sharing their experiences and perspectives on how the concept of Resilient's shapes their daily practices across scales from the architectural project to the master plan, and all the spatial and programmatic actions in between. Each panelist group or group will have 20 minutes to present as we will then open the floor for questions from the audience, so please feel free to share your thoughts and remarks on the Q&A section of the Zoom webinar. Having said that, I would like to introduce our lineup for this session. Anna Ditch is a Resilient architect and urban designer who for the last 20 years had worked between Sao Paolo and New York, using design to promote interaction in projects that range from the 9-11 Memorial Museum in New York to the urbanization of the third largest favela in Sao Paolo. She is currently leading research on the urbanization of the Amazon region, and is the principal at the design studio RRC, Architectura da Convivencia. She also leads the Design for Six Feet Initiative and is an agent associate professor at Columbia GSEP and coordinates the architectural traditional architectures platform at Escola da Cidade in Sao Paolo. We also have Uruguayan architect and founder of Rafael Vignoli Architects, Rafael Vignoli. His work spans the globe with landmark architecture structures located in major cities around the world. During the course of his 40-plus year career, he has practiced in the US, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. At home with both large and small-scale projects, recent work ranges from university buildings to leading-edge biomedical and nano-system research facilities. Vignoli is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Japan Institute of Architects, as well as the Sociedad Central de Arquitectos. As we also acknowledge the importance of programmatic actions, I would like to introduce also Natalia Mosquera, a social worker with a master in urban studies who has worked in several areas of social research, specifically with Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities seeking to understand the complex formation of the Latin American region from ethno-racial processes to building ideas and strategies for peace initiatives and territorial transformations. Natalia is a local consultant for MIT co-op supporting the knowledge and network creation processes, facilitating and exchanging between local initiatives and the institution, as well as coordinating local logistics in Colombia. And last but not least, I would like to introduce a collective that embraces resilience even at the core of their identities. Oficina de Resiliencia Urbana is an innovative practice based in Mexico City that brings together a group of high-level professionals in architecture, urban planning, resilience, and landscape. Founded by the Mexican architects and urban designers, Adriana Chavez, Víctor Rico, Angelina Tudela, Oru designs and materializes urban environmental integration processes to shape the future of the human experience in regions, cities, and communities across Latin America and beyond. By working on projects with tangible social environmental impact through applied research, multilateral alliances, urban design, and landscape infrastructure. Without further ado, I would like to give it up first for Anna Dietsch. Sorry, hi. Should I share my screen? I'm sure. Is it visible? Great. Well, thank you for inviting me. It's great to be here. Thank you for everyone that is here also with us. I think that certain words, they kind of acquire a status in a specific circle. They kind of turn into a jargon of some sort and start to be overused and have different meanings with different people for different people. I think that's what happened with resilience in our circles, architects of architects. And I think that was a little bit clear in the prior panels. So I just want to clarify that in my practice and experience, I have approached the concept of resiliency from the understanding of how nature and soft systems could take care of what hardcore engineering could not, because they are adaptable, they are dynamic, and they are holistic. Based on this backdrop, the quest for resiliency in my projects has also been closely linked to an effort to understand how projects are embedded in their contexts in an integrated and holistic way. Especially now with all the challenges brought by climate change and social injustice, I don't think we can afford anymore to dissect the world and keep it in little drawers. In the age of super tech and super specialization, architects have the capacity to make connections and the power to apply knowledge through creativity. And I think this is a very valuable asset. When designing, I have oftentimes tried to puncture the surface to dive deeper into the embedded layers of meanings and contradictions where I have worked. And in my mind, the urban scape cannot be conceived, neither metaphorically or physically, without the landscape, the non-urban, its cultural energy, and its human capital. And I think we've heard this so many times today. Our cities, our built work, are platforms that shape us, sometimes not the way we want, and I think should be shaped back by us and need to be shaped back by us. When I'm designing, I try to remind myself of these layers and that in one way or the other, I am, we are always dealing with them. So that said, I'm going to show a couple of my projects. I'll try to be quick. This is the Victor Tivita Echo Park. It was built in a brownfield in Sao Paulo. There was an incinerator there that had been active for 40 years. So the levels of soil and water contamination were very high. And the city had ordered that the whole site should be covered with one meter with three feet of dirt before it could be used as a public park. So my design was based on the opposite premise. What if we exposed the contamination so we could invite the population to know and to reflect about it? I floated a wood deck above the contaminated site defining the areas of use. The certified wood deck unfolds from the horizontal to the vertical plane to form open urban rooms. And users are invited to learn about the sustainability systems used in the site. The striated gardens were designed over a low-tech Brazilian system for self-irrigation. Using a raised floor system that allows excess rainwater to be stored at the bottom, the water is then pulled back by plant roots through the use of coconut fiber. Bathroom gray waters are cleaned through a system of wetlands and used to irrigate the existing trees. Plants were curated with examples of specimens used for bioenergy, medicine production, genetic engineering, and soil purification so that people could know about that. The incinerator was decontaminated and is used for exhibitions and classrooms, while the open rooms have been used for many different cultural and leisure activities. The second project, the Greenstream Linear Park, started as a request that a door be opened to this alley that we can see here in Villa Madalena, which is a very dense and bohemian neighborhood in Sao Paulo. We designed the door only to find out that there could be no doors in this alley. It was considered a, quote, sanitation alley by code. And a sanitation alley we discovered was meant to protect a body of water. So we went to look for the water we couldn't see. And we found out that Sao Paulo, in reality, is like a very thin slab of concrete and asphalt over a lot of water. In the old maps of the city, we found a green stream only to see it disappear over time and to be canalized and to become a very big problem. So we got together with the environmental department of the city to propose a linear park over the invisible stream. It became a mile long pathway for pedestrian and bikes, weaved into the dense fabric of the neighborhood, taking advantage of the obsolete spaces created by the code and by cars. We hijacked car space to create pockets for leisure and cultural activities. And it was also designed as a giant drainage machine to address the flash flooding in the area. Layers of permeable and water retaining material could absorb roughly 20 to 30% of the rainwater adding, aiding the overwhelmed drainage system at peak times. In some places the water was made visible, like here, where a new water reservoir was planned. And like in the Echo Park, this project would also call users to reflect about their city. In this case, about the city's water and the hidden rivers under their feet. Well, this project was approved in 2011 and it was funded by the city three different times, but it never got built. The affluent neighborhood at the top of the basin didn't want more people wandering around their neighborhood. And they couldn't really care that the neighborhoods below the basin were being flooded with nine feet of water every year. So they used their influence and the city's lack of legal competence to stop the construction. It was frustrating, but looking back, that is when the project really got interesting. To react to this setback, we got together as a community from the lower areas of the basin and pressed the city to fight back. For some years, we closed one of the alleys and one of the streets along the stream and promoted several public events and parties. This movement ended up bringing a lot of tourism to the area and several new businesses. We were able to get a couple of abandoned plazas renovated and adopted by the private sector. And we had sidewalks enlarged by the city. And in 2016, we finally got approval from the mayor to permanently ban cars from the street and the alley we had usually closed during these years. This experience was later transformed into a new law in Sao Paolo called Open Streets. And now any neighborhood can ask to have one of its streets closed for pedestrian use during the weekends. There are currently more than 50 streets in the program, including the city's iconic Paulista Avenue downtown. This third project is an Amazon eco library and it was designed for a not-for-profit called Vagalumi. For the past 20 years, Vagalumi has worked with 250 small communities along the rivers of the Amazon basin. They bring books to the children and they train young members of the community to tell stories. This apparently simple intervention has strengthened community organization involvement and these communities have thrived. In recognition of their efforts and success, Vagalumi got a grant from a Swiss bank to build a real library in some communities. My design evolved around the shelves where the books were distributed and used local materials and technology making sure all parts could be either be fabricated on site or shipped in the small canoes used in the area. The pitched tin roof used in the local houses got elevated to allow for cross ventilation and function as an umbrella against the rain. The typical roof trusses were angled so the unexpected form could stress the symbolic importance of the communal space. But like the Greenstream Linear Park, it didn't get built because the bank pulled out the money at the last minute and this is also when it kind of got interesting because the kids of one of these communities, they just decided they weren't going to wait for the funding or the bank or for us to solve the problem. They decided they would use an abandoned house in their village as their own library. So one day I was in a conference in Panama and I received a call, a worried call from the not-for-profits director. She needed help because of the poor conditions of the house. They were afraid the children would get hurt. So they sent me pictures of the house. I made some sketches on my lap during a conference, talked a couple of times to a local carpenter who had volunteered to help and they built it. This led the way to other community libraries and also for us to realize that they were the ones who needed to build them and that they could build them. And with small grants that we got here and there, we did 12 of them so far. I would like to finish up with my research about the urbanization of the Brazilian Amazon and I'm going to start with a small video. Extensive urbanization is pervasive. It has reached all corners of the globe including the Amazon. Take the Belomonte hydroelectric as an example. Its recent construction caused an enormous environmental disaster and when it reaches its full production capacity, 80% of all the energy produced will go into the production of raw aluminum which will then be exported to Canada, to Japan, to China, to the US so that Coca-Cola cans can be produced and we can drink one in New York. As you just saw, the extractive industry causing the forestation is supported by an extensive web of cities and villages causing a lot of damage at a very, very rapid pace. In 2017, I won a grant to visit the five cities in Brazil that had elected indigenous mayors and started to catalog the urbanization patterns in the Amazon. But as you can imagine, it's not only about grids and urban indexes. To put it into perspective, let's remember that the Amazon is almost the size of the continental US. It shelters immense biodiversity and has a huge role in our global environment balance, as we all know. It's also supported by incredibly complex and very, very fragile ecosystem. But what seems to be pristine forest? We now know has been managed by men for probably 12,000 years. New laser technology has detected the presence of human settlements all around the Amazon region, including clusters of villages connected by wide roads, man-made infrastructure like artificial lakes, canal, dykes, and so on, as well as managed forest plantations. Take the example of the circular farming method of the Black River Basin, which is still practiced today. Farming inside the dense forest, these communities have a sophisticated knowledge of what to plant and when, so as to promote cross fertilization by different species and have the forest return in 10 to 25 year cycles. This knowledge is embedded in what I have called a circular culture with a very different imaginary from ours. Concepts of fluidity, ownership, kinship, space, time interrelate to each other and are deeply integrated to the environment around them. In their territories, these communities have been able to better protect the environment than in any other place in Brazil and the world to that matter. So going back to the movies concept of extended naturalization, I have been exploring this idea of a third landscape and how traditional Indigenous practices could inform the urbanization occurring in the Amazon. Explore the idea of a hybrid urbanization that is structured on alternative solutions arising from the encounter of two imaginaries, that of our modern world and that of the Indigenous local knowledge. The possibilities are many at the scale of architecture with research to be done about materials and constructive technology, at the scale of urban design and infrastructure, and especially how we can bring our knowledge in green infrastructure to meet the local Indigenous and so on and so on. But also this encounter should be a recognition of these other imaginaries that are out there. Maybe it could help us transition to a long-term vision that is not standardized but is specific, interdependent and aligned with new technologies and relevant to local context. To finish up, I would like to go back to the idea of resiliency and its relationships to an understanding of the world, to an understanding of the world that is less fragmented than our modern industrialized society has made us believe. The idea that as practitioners, as architects, we can put ourselves in a position to question and to respond to the challenges we face today in a systematic holistic way, one that could help communities and ecosystems gain resiliency. Thank you. Thank you so much, Anna, for this insightful presentation. We're serving Yoli, the floor is yours. Hi, thanks for the invitation and thanks to Anna and to the to the students that I've watched in the previous panel. It is difficult for me to forget and entangling, I mean just to tackle the very notion of what resilience is in practice because resilience is, as Anna was saying before, is this capacity of an object to come back to shape after it has been subject to deforming conditions of its basic structure. And I think that probably the capacity is more of an educational tool or something that could be invested and proclaimed and conveyed to people all over the world at whatever age they are and in whatever context they are. What you've been showing so far is a clear indication of something that by definition these markets or these countries like in America have been invaded by, which is a permanent perception of impossibility to overcome basic tenants of what we call civilisation. It's just a continent in transition. We all come from it so we know it well and we all have that capacity otherwise we wouldn't be where we all collectively are and much less be as happy as the people that were shown in Venezuela and in Lima and in Brazil and in Sao Paulo after taking hold and feeling empowered by their own decision to overcome. I mean it sounds a little bit like a political comment but perhaps the only thing that I could contribute to you is to describe essentially what is that stress today in all the spheres in which we operate, the culture, the development process, health, the practice of our craft. And it seems to me that perhaps those subjects are perhaps too white and too lofty for a short presentation but I think that perhaps a brief summary on what are the stresses under which the practice operates today could be of help to students and to other practitioners and to the audience at large. So the stresses on the practice are not only just defined by the culture and by by the political circumstances and clearly by the pandemic and the rest of it but I want to focus on one aspect of it which is the slow process of diminishment of the scope of the profession and that is exactly what is it that we do can do or are skilled to do and that has been shrinking and I have been in practice for more than 50 years consistently and that process that started with this sort of kind of idea that specialization was going to save the world and so on you know has actually made the practice into a sub-practice to a number of other actors and that really have filled gaps that we ourselves created and I think that's interesting to explore because in the same way in which it's difficult to build, it's difficult to design and it's difficult to program and I think that those three things used to be in the preview of what we architects used to know in other words how to from how to program to how to build and how these two things really came into defining the way in which we designed which seems to be perhaps the only category that apparently remains in our scope. The problem is that even design, design without essentially having complete control of the media that we use that is to say our media is construction, it's not talking, it's not drawing, it's not modeling, it's essentially building and we have started to lose a grasp on the control of that technology. It's sort of like if you were a sculptor in the Renaissance and didn't know how to hit marble or work with your instruments and I think that comes from a number of that particular loss, the loss on the ability to knowing your media is a combination of the effect of a shift in the philosophy of education in architecture that probably started right at the same moment in which I graduated which was in 1968 or so and that is that that became a process of rarefication of the whole discourse in architecture most of which perhaps we you are familiar with and here they ended out in in academia and other fields in which the essential component of the transmission of the craft got completely lost I think that process is becomes one of the I think fundamental reasons why that stress is is presently more than obvious in architecture in the practice of architecture in other words we know less and we claim less and when we claim more what we're claiming is the wrong objective we claim for aesthetic independence for some kind of ability to convince people in an operation which is essentially a collaborative effort in many different levels that we claim that we have a right over form that other people don't and I think that that's something which is pretty clear in in in some of the work that you saw just recently in the previous section in the work of the students and also in the images that Anna showed before which is that essentially the ability to give form is something that is inherent to communities and to people at large and that we somehow have brought that into an intersection in which the management of a very complex and very expensive project which is every single construction including you know a construction like the huts that were shown before in the in the origin of the amazon that process is a process which needs coordination so it's not that I think that the profession is gone I think that the profession is under stress and therefore my only contribution to this is to say that we should think about the origins of this loss of scope and they are cultural and they have origins and in my simplistic way of seeing it has also guilty partners I mean you know I for one can trace the the the debacle of architectural education over the last 35 40 years practically day by day I mean in and and I think that that's a that's one fact the if you are on the other end on the receiving end of the of the process of education which is to create places of work essentially opportunities for people to practice we all have become in a certain way teachers I mean the practice is charged with a supplement of informing people coming into the workforce with knowledge that it is beyond elementary I mean you know it's just like it's like if you were a surgeon and you had never seen blood in your life kind of and and and that is a a a mechanism which mostly all all of us that are in practice and understand that it is fundamental you cannot practice in a collective exercise like architecture is unless you at the same time teach now what's a price of that the price is that if you think for a minute that that what used to be a fairly stable economic cycle of the profession when the profession was a had sustainability in terms of the financial structure that this works against that aspect add to that the fact that the scope has been reduced and this cost has been reduced simply by the same process which is that if you don't know a certain area of what is to be your area of concern somebody else will fill the gap which is this extraordinary process of multiplication of new consultancies I always use this argument I you know nowadays in for instance in residential work presumably you're supposed to do the envelope and somebody else does the plans that may sound stupid but but fundamentally it is and the the fact is that by retrieving from the ability to perform in many different levels from exact exactly involving yourself on the core of what development is all about which is that you should have a return culturally financially whatever you should have a return and without involving yourself in ensuring the possibility of obtaining that retail somebody else fills the gap and that process is a process that requires realignment and that's what I think is interesting now that you mentioned in how one in one adapts to the situation which some people just quit and you know get completely disheartened and don't do anything else and go into I don't know I know people that have gone into administration or or you know variety of different alternative things interior decoration and so on and so forth the mechanism is a was that I don't see you how you can be an architect today if you're not resilient but it's not something that that is beyond exactly what what it is the definition of it which is that your hit you kind of bent a little bit and then you come back and try to understand exactly how to move it I don't think that any project in design terms has much of a an ability to exemplify what I'm talking about because one thing you know I've been told that you wanted to see some of our work which I think is a little bit of a vanity project but say I every project that I done recently in Latin America has actually gone through an extraordinary level of absurdity uh fundamentally for at least in the areas in which I have been working more often which is in in in South America and Uruguay and Argentina and in parts of Bolivia too the work we do claims to be completely normal in terms of of its value related to other places of production I work you know in many different places and it is always the same some somehow you don't want to diminish your capacity to say that uh that you don't have to justify what you did I mean that somehow it's by itself self-explanatory and I think that that's a virtue that you can only achieve if you overcome the pressures that each place has in in many different ways I think that perhaps the most significant uh aspect or comment that I can make is that if you are going to be in architectural practice be prepared because it's it's just the greatest job in the world and an absolute torture and I think that that's a great thing if you have that attitude I mean I know if you're shy of that then you're in trouble but the most important thing back to Latin America since there seems to be a characterization of the whole event around the hour hour part of the continent it seems to me that it's also important to understand exactly where is the social dysfunction that has created most of this critical circumstances both in terms of the governmental thing as much as education safety security health I mean you know the whole thing and I think that the culprit that is completely consistent all over the place is essentially corruption and that's it that's that's a subject matter that probably hopefully nobody teaches in architectural schools nowadays but it is exactly one is is the the the the waters in which you're going to swim are complicated and they're complicated for that particular chemical mix which is that purpose and goodness and creativity and happiness and all the rest are completely destroyed by the terrible effect of corruption which in many cases has a clear origin historical origin and in many others it's just pure content contagious I mean you know that people just get into this business of destroying the social fabric with a single objective of personal gain I mean we all know for what I can see that that is a is is not a very a very promising forecast but people seem to be completely attached to it I mean you know all I can tell you as an example of that is that me and a friend of mine decided that wanted to donate the building to the University of Buenos Aires the Department of Sciences which are people that have been always underestimated and under provided for decades some members of my family belong to the to the world of sciences and then I is it thought that we both thought that it was a great thing to try to build them a building we building we build the building we paid for the building and we still couldn't donate it and the reason why we couldn't donate it was because in the donation didn't have an X percent of tax that was supposed to be paid to somebody that had the control on the University on that part of the world and I think that that's that's also emblematic on on on this very simple aspect which is that regardless of what you do the if you if your work is not engaged into the capacity of a community to overcome these aspects of the program and by the way every single project and work that you showed today shows that that is not only an alive possibility but a brilliant one I think that you know as an architect as a practicing architect it is really a struggle and I think that the struggle as I said from the beginning is originated by our failure to educate in a certain way that is consistent to to controlling our own vocabulary which is essentially building and knowing that building is expensive and that requires involves a myriad of people then and that that that be constant operation which is really that needs that kind of managerial capacity that architects used to have including the capacity to really as Anna was describing before. Mr. Vagnali, I think it's interesting like the points you bring out about how practice an architecture has changed over time and also bringing up even personal experiences to highlight the challenges we face as architects in the multiple scales whether we try whether we try to engage with the public but also work on the private side and navigate this realm that the bill that the bill that the bill environment is dealing with all these stakeholders but also understanding architecture as a pedagogical practice like how how as you gain experience and practice you also feel the need and understand all the richness and the potential there is at the at the classroom at the at the studio workshops where people learn not only from the professors not only learn from the students but also students learn from the from the professors and the communities they engage in the multiple in their multiple phases and processes and on this I I wanted to also highlight the importance of knowing the context and engaging with the communities to also introduce our next panelist which is Natalia Mosquera that has a vast experience in Colombia and also in alliances with institutions such as MIT co-lab understanding the potential academia has a has here and can also and can definitely complement your thoughts from her experience in the Colombian communities with MIT co-lab. Thank you so much Professor Vangeli. Can you hear me? I was having some trouble to hear you. Yeah I think I think again you're good. Okay please let me know if you can. Oh good the floor is yours. Okay can you see my screen? I think I'm not able to see it right now but let's give it a try maybe give it another try. It seems that I'm shutting it all right. You're good perfect. Okay thank you very much Christine. Okay good afternoon to everyone. Please receive my hello from Colombia and I'm here thank you first on anything thank you for for having me in this important space where you know we have been able to be in touch with different perspectives and possibilities about what resilience is and how you know it can be applied in different contexts and and disciplines. So I'm Natalia Mosquera. I'm part of the community innovative lab at MIT at MIT. My name is Just Money which is a program that is developing like kind of alternative frameworks for finance and we have another program called Just Economy which is a program based in New York that works with different communities in Brooklyn and Bronx and the world is also is focused on people of color and supporting you know economic development initiatives with you know people of color in New York and there is you know our program called Inclusive Regional Development Program which has you know the vision of being working in Latin America and that currently is is only focused or is mainly focused on the Colombia Pacific region to cities I'm gonna share with you that like shortly but yeah my presentation it is called from resilience to reparation and self-determination and and I hope that you know these conclusions and insights that we that I'm going to provide today you know help us to go deeper in our reflections of our resilience and also you know getting more perspectives from you know communities at the base about how they see resilience and how you know they have work around resilience and what other perspectives can also be connected to what we understand for resilience and how as I said before resilience can be practiced both from you know from the academic sector and you know from the social justice and social organization sector that you know is trying to change and the balances of power in our society so okay so first I'm gonna share like more about COLA which I think is very important so who we are as I said we are the community innovators laugh and our North Star is to construct economic democracy and facilitate self-determination with communities directly impacted by the transatlantic slave trade to create equitable human flourishing that respects the planet so how we you know do this work so as I said we have these three different programs we are in different places we are in places where we see that the transatlantic slave trade was more impacted and impact you know people communities territories regions etc so how we work so our main umbrella is to support democratic engagement and how we do that so we use the perspective this framework the methodologies around innovation from the margins you know having the hypothesis that the people who has most experienced the the problems the challenges are the experts so they have key insights key knowledge to solve and to create solutions to the problems that they are facing so we use link think and do so link how we link so we link you know stakeholders students leaders initiatives that that to support you know communities that are in something that we call disrupt anything came from a theory that we use that is called theory you and so communities regions that are in disruptive moments of change so we work with them to mobilize assets resources you know to promote you know solutions that we think should be tied to the perspectives of you know policies and and everything around development so link and then think so we create sure analysis in with marginalized communities liberating knowledge to enable local efforts to build economic democracy and the other is do so during those disruptive moments of change we work with the Russia just and so yeah I'm gonna share and our like our case from Colombia just to illustrate like like how we came with the conclusions that I'm gonna share with you later about resilience and why we said that we are not working around resilience that we are instead working around reparations and self-determination so I started you've worked in the in the Pacific region that now is a three-year study it's called within the region and why within the region because after seven years of being working in the Pacific like implementing the the Colombian Pacific implementing different programs of leadership training within capacity around innovation we know we have you know both like a like a beautiful network of initiatives and leaders in different sectors you know doing different things so we define that we want to you know build or with these people with these beautiful networks we want to weave what we consider next to them are some of the key challenges that need solution in the region to advance economic development but led by you know but but but the people of the base so within the region is our strategy like you know that is connecting all of our previous work and this is a strategy that is currently advancing peace building reparations and economic democracy and in two cities like this word has like a regional vision for many reasons but maybe because the history of the of the region that has a lot of income and the region itself like has like a like a own history that connects and that connects the region the territory the people etc so now we are working in those two cities Kipdo and Buena Ventura and as I said so something that is that the region share is the history of five hundred centuries of history of slavery colonization and resources extraction and at the same time something that you know all of the region has in common is the historic fight for freedom and self-determination that I'm going to be sharing more today so many challenges historic relation historical relation out segregation so we see that the region the Pacific region is one of the with the lowest indicators of development we found that 60% of its population doesn't have like access to basic needs that's running water you know electricity internet that kind of thing and it matched with our history of slavery and racialized economy that conceived the region that's something that is of course common in our region but this is is is is is deepened in this in this in this in this region because it's own history of slavery and colonization and you know people from outside coming to our our our territory and taking you know basically what is ours and you know no I know no allowing us to think and and and and and and create our own trajectories of the environment so here is a quote from one of our leaders Graciano Caizel he said what is war for them is you know historically we have developed community organization to support lives now we have to organize community to defend life this is a quote that is talking about because in the phase I can cycle of violence in Colombia and the pacific region is one of the of the region that has been most impacted by by those conflict and what is most like what is at the center of what's happening here is the fight or the war around resources so that's why Graciano shared that so main challenges are historic regional segregation racialized economy a they need from communities to currently defend themselves from war and from our actors and environmental conflicts as uh professor Anna was sharing in in in in the amazon you know we have this like like a like a similar you know conflict environmental conflict here in in the pacific because you know it's a very rich very biodiverse region and we have like different interests you know around the resources and we have communities at the center of everything you know fighting to protect themselves and fighting to uh you know keep um working to develop uh the territory and their lands but in this context we have like a lot of like given the context we have like a lot of opportunities here and that's why call out is in the pacific region working with communities with social movements with civic movements and it is because you know this five by this five hundred years of history of you know black and indigenous communities been living there after you know colonization has you know gave us the opportunity also to build our own vision of development and we have like a class communities that are clarity of what we want just we just need to you know the platforms and the opportunities and as professor raffa I was saying and we need to also stop corruption but we have that so in 2017 we have like a civic and like a historic civil strike in the in the in the region when a civic movement won like a 500 million of dollars that should be used in a fund that is going to be funding like a key projects of infrastructure for for the city especially for Buena Ventura so we are supporting also that process and we have like opportunities around you know the long history of this community is building its own culture and identity that is tied to a vision of our regional development and regional economy something that we cannot see separate that's something that we need to to to to to see together and we also have something very important that communities in the region have won which is we have the 70 law which is a law that recognize collective land for communities and this is a and this is also a policy of reparation that was recognized in our last constitution which is from 1919 so some conclusions around you know you know supporting this work and you know our work here has been into main lines I would say so we are working on supporting collective protection something that we call collective protection in this context of war and armed conflict in this process we are supporting like an entity's community councils recognized by the 70 law who are the you know the organization who manage the land the collective land that is that I mentioned and they said for example this photo that is resistive noise aguantar which is resisting then so we don't want to talk about resilience we want to talk about reparation and self-determination and that's why sorry just to conclusion I'm gonna be done well you're good uh this is yeah we're just having like a small internet delay but you're good continuing okay thank you okay thank you okay so this is a quote from Mila Mila is my partner when I do that she said we don't want to be resilient we want to recover peace and organize ourselves and the state to be wellness for our future generation so why reparations reparations because reparations recognize the historic trajectories of harm and justice inequality so it recognized that what we are facing today has had a long history that needs to be repaired right so it also recognized that economy is based on race and gender exploitation and it needs to change reparations because we need to approach restorative policies that recognize land to community that has lost them for example in Colombia we have the 17th law we need to talk about culture reparations based on the harm and community affectations caused by colonization and work we need education that responds to the territory needs ambition of development we need own education we need education propia why self-determination because community in the region have fighted for the rise of self-governance that will end colonization and extraction we want to own our own destiny for this dream we work every day linea cordua which is order of our years okay card Christina we decided finished thank you very much thank you thank you so much for such an insightful presentation especially for integrating all the other components we've been talking in this session now we're gonna give it up for our last panelist Adriana Victor and Elena from Oficinae Resilience Urbana hello everyone can you see us like on my video I just asked to start video are you good thank you there we are okay hello everyone all right thanks so much for the invitation we're very happy to be in this event we ourselves were students back in 2012 in the latter organization so we know what it takes to carry out these this event so thank you so much thanks for also for the introduction on the other panelists we just want to let you know that Adriana and I met back in 2012 at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and joined forces whilst being students to put together an application for Mexico City in the context of the Rockefeller Foundation's centennial initiative 100 Brazilian cities which is I guess why we decided to call ourselves that it was a very new concept at the time but we thought it was an interesting framework of action eventually the city got selected and when we returned we each started acquiring experiences in different fields I became director of special projects in Mexico City's government public space authority Elena established her thesis seminar at the national university and Adriana joined the resilience agency as part of that 100 Brazilian cities initiated and then she led the program for medium-sized cities in the inter-american development bank so after a few years just to say that that we we got back together but having experience in different fields which allowed us to have a broader understanding of the real challenges for sustainable fair urban planning design and implementation in Latin America with all the challenges that entails including corruption and the other topics that have been mentioned earlier today anyway so it's it's important to to have to acquire knowledge and from other fields today is birthday and it's time for designers to confront the big challenges and question really a role in the context of two major issues that we identify climate change and social inequality we believe that the design disciplines have acquired popularity in an elite world but that this has been inverse to their disempowerment and inability to deliver alternatives for the required urgency as we all know the earth is currently experiencing an immense amount of ecosystem degradation exacerbated socioeconomic and spatial inequalities more and more we see events such as wildfires heat waves floods large-scale earthquakes impacts water pollution scarcity among many other issues the impacts of climate change however might might hit harder in Latin America due to extreme social inequalities for example Mexico that has 11122 kilometers of coastline is home to 37 percent of the country's population these communities will be the first to suffer the impacts of sea level rise coastal erosion flooding biodiversity loss we know that coastal areas of Latin America and the Caribbean are witnessing urban expansion so we have to keep an eye on that humanity and millions of species are are facing enormous pressures challenges and inequality all of which have been exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic crisis the current global pandemic represents a unique opportunity to explore new domains and scales for design's investment utility and service to the world as Hashim Sarkis the current Venice Biennale put it one day we feel that it's essential to blur the boundaries of design with those of other fields of knowledge to expand our agency now Adri will explain a little bit how we understand resilience and how we put it into practice hello we use resilience as a framework to understand multiple timeframes both from path to future different scales ecosystems and socio-political and economic contexts in other words for us to be resilient is to be able to adapt in a world that desperately needs to change we explore the agency of design to build resilient communities and positively impact human and non-human lives in a meaningful relationship with the planet in resilience and practice we have incorporated the following tools of method training from design and research process collaborative approach the understanding of multiple scales and timeframes and representation as visualization in design as research we work with it's a methodology we have realized that there's no other choice than to experiment and take risk but also we need to understand first then design and learn from experimentation successes and failures within process we understand that large code projects require the design of a process where design is merely one component but order elements need to be addressed before and after implementation or construction with a comprehensive long-term vision in collaborative approach we believe no alternative world would be possible without an ecosystem of designers willing to experiment and collaborate and with technicians politicians and decision makers deterring to tackle these challenges collaboration is not an option it's the only way multiple scales and timeframes is scaling up architectural thinking incorporates not only spatial terms but also different temporalities with the scalar design processes within complex systems do not end after being plotted or built they contemplate transformation from the community appropriation maintenance adaptability and monitoring of time and finally representation and visualization the detailed tools can help communicate multiple complexities to different audiences so as to inform share awareness and decision-making process as professor Dilip that wouldn't assess how we represent landscape leads to the way on how we design now we are going to present you from the city-wide scale to a public space intervention first in the large scale the resilient city perspective and projection of an immuno city it's a publication with the mexico city secretary of integral risk management and civil protection the book integrates and visualizes the history of risk in the city in a hidden history it aggregates research on the construction of risk over time to understand the city's current vulnerabilities but also recognizes what has been done through the segregation and juxtaposition of your graphic information at different scales from the volcanic axis to the city we have the government to understand the complexity of multiple layers that are accidentally in the city now i'm going to pass it to victor who's going to present the next project thanks adi so this research medium scale hydric districts was funded by the mexico innovation fund grants through the david rocker feller center for latin american studies at harvard university under the guidance of anita beris betia who is chair and professor of landscape architecture at the harvard gst so as you all know the water well and as well as in other cities the water crisis in mexico city is urgent and the city continues to face enormous pressures to redevelop in a more compact and sustainable way water management policy is becoming increasingly central to the negotiation between urban development and water sustainability in the city historically mexico city's approach to water crisis has been either at the monumental scale of great infrastructure or more recently at the scale of on coordinated piecemeal green infrastructure so the hydric district is an experimental medium scale urban model that combines decentralized circular water management with the improvement of neighborhood livability through strategies of reuse treatment retention and infiltration this project abandons the conventional notion of water extraction pollution and drainage to understand any kind of water as resource not waste and that includes soapy water as sewage as well as rain the conceptual design framework proposes three main strategies first reveal the history second consolidate and expand open space systems and three urban water as resource not waste these three components are interrelated and can serve as guidelines to respond to the particularity of historical processes and urban environmental evolution of a particular area in mexico city called tacubaya it's a historical neighborhood that is in deep need of retrofitting and is experiencing the pressures of development speculation also the hydric district's medium scale can accommodate an urban governance framework that can connect which is super important professor beniole mentioned this connection element in design connect urban and water authorities local communities developers and geos students and designers in order to consolidate a shared vision for a more water sensitive mexico city and finally the tacubaya hydric district can help demonstrate how mexico city and other densities for that matter can advance via aggregation towards a more sustainable and informed water management vis a vis the most pressing issues of water stress and climate change and now elena will tell us a little bit about one of our most recent projects in los cabos whole shade garden thank you pictora nadiana so lastly i'm gonna talk about the smallest scale that we work with um this is a series of two projects nearby they're all in los cabos we call them shade garden or shade gardens they were built last year by sedat which is the secretary of urban and agrarian and territorial development in mexico's federal government so they're part of this large-scale initiative the project was built with very few resources with a low maintenance scheme in a very short design and construction time frame of basically eight months including design and construction so it was quite a challenge you can show the next thank you um so the shade you can see both sides in purple on the top of the map um so the shade gardens twin side project improve microclimate promote a local culture and environmental identity while mitigating vulnerability to disasters in a marginal area of the city which is actually outside of the touristic zones um and they are also water infrastructures and landscape projects that slow down infiltration and uh they channel run of water while articulating a public space with regional vegetation um this vegetation requires little irrigation and help build an identity around it since it's very beautiful and the area um well does not show it quite well particularly in these marginalized areas the structure of the shade gardens which you can see in these pictures uh the architectural building functions as a space of protection from the sun for multiple uses and acts also as a logistical center for collection and sheltering with with sufficient energy and drinking water for disaster events so on a daily basis the project will function as a public amenity that contributes to enhancing livability and security in the marginal community as I said in Los Cabos during a rain or storm event the project will channel the runoff water to a series of infiltration gardens contributing to uh avoid flooding uh downstream and during events events of extreme weather it can act as a logistical center for food medicine collection uh that also allows for coordination between the municipal authorities and local communities uh the open and accessible public space includes no fences and or closures and it integrates into the urban fabric while accommodating some idea of appropriation from the local community that has used it in different ways which we didn't expect or know beforehand the construction included recycled materials such as recycled concrete gravel and vegetation to provide shade so that's basically um the elements that compose the garden of of shades and we want to show a video that's the skate park next to the building which is also in the shaded area and the children playground behind it as you can see it's being used basically by night because of the weather as well so I think we can use the last part of this video to close our presentation um in Oru uh well first of all we want to thank our team that I think they're they're watching right now uh Oru would not be possible without our team uh it's a family uh it's a collaborative effort we've become sort of a collective consciousness uh and we believe that design's commitment is not solely with aesthetics immediacy or market interests uh we believe that as designers we can contribute within a collective framework to have a positive impact on people's and nature's well-being through experimental strategies informed by local communities specialists technicians politicians and decision makers by addressing new questions and by tackling the challenges ahead in a more integrated way so now is the time to rethink the boundaries of design and what design can do for us we are confident and optimistic that design has plenty uh to imagine and build a new normal for us all including uh beings other other than human so thank you very very much for your time and we're open for questions and discussion thanks Cristina thanks thanks everybody for for for insightful presentations I would like to invite you to turn on your cameras as we're going to engage in a small uh debate also integrating questions that we had in the in the previous sessions and also general comments that have have come through the through the chat I have seen that we have uh cover important uh uh aspects and themes that cover scales but also the role of stakeholders in the build environment so I wanted to incorporate a question that we weren't able to to address a couple sessions ago from Kenny Smiley and Santiago Pagan he said that and I would also add something to that question uh his question was what is the importance uh of of approaching cross scalar efforts when addressing risk and I would like to add a reflection how do you envision uh these cross scalar efforts uh in in the region uh from now on looking all the progress and even the challenges we're facing nowadays I'm sorry who is this question for Cristina sorry it's open you we can you guys can jump in and also uh complement each other's thoughts too well I I don't know I can start I think that I mean this first kind of macro scale problem is that we're the world under development right third world countries um so global um economies and you know the extraction economy is the the engine that's um affecting all of what we do you know like you know what would just change you know just um showed from the micro scale to the macro scale so I think there's no way that we can think of anything without think thinking um you know you know a series of of scales and systems that are behind um and embedded in embedded in what we're doing right um and it's interesting that um Rafael um that Viola was talking about his experience and throughout the years how the scope of the architect has diminished um and I think that you know these things are are completely related I don't think it's the scope of the architect that has diminished I think it's the voice of anyone who is trying to make um um something um tangible out of you know an idea that is not um completely in unison with this macro scale of what you know industrialized platforms um of modernity um are calling right that's my first take um I think another thing to add to this cross scalar effort conversation is that we don't understand risk through that lens you might just transfer the risk somewhere else because risk does not just disappear so mitigating it um requires at least an understanding of systems that is larger than the architectural plot or the urban site specifically so I believe what you need to understand like larger scales and that definition is also part of the project and I believe it becomes an interesting um subject for architects to start thinking about how to set up those scales that you need to understand before transferring those risks or um generating problems elsewhere sorry can you hear me yes okay sorry I'm having okay I wanted to to uh I think we also need like like to at best risk we need uh like a multidisciplinary perspective of reality um and I think you know from trying to reflect also from you know social science and I'm not sure that I mean that in reality for example we can separate the macro micro scales I think it needs like a deeper uh understanding and uh I would add that definitely the participatory and collaborative part is it's key like to define risk and also you know understand the history of the place understand the condition of the place who can do that the power relationships it's it's a it's a very important you know perspective to address risk especially to avoid that you know that that risk is going to happen again or that or there the thing that you want to address is going to happen again to to the community or region or city I just want to add some like a little note because sometimes you know and I I was hearing that also in the first panel um I had a student at um the urban design um studio at Columbia and one of the years um you know we were discussing I think it was before the pandemic in 2019 we were part of the super studio so we went to UPenn to see the the Green New Deal conference and I remember coming back and we were discussing with the students and then one student said to me but he asked you know but should we be gone to like law school right I mean there's so many problems like you know the systemic structural problems and I think that's the other thing about scale and you know I think you have to understand the background and those systemic structural realities so that you can act um whatever scale you can act and and and you are willing to act and so and I think now with the Green New Deal like if you read the Green New Deal it's just a big macro scale manifesto right a very good one but I think the ones who are going to have to solve the puzzle it's us and it's not the consultants it's not you know the consultants are going to come along but you know the ones who have the capacity to make um this link and these jumps from different scales and disciplines um I think it is um our you know profession not only our profession but I think we have that capacity because we were trained to be generalists we weren't trained to be you know um specialized and and and we may lose a lot with that I think like Rafael Viola said in in the marketplace and in the power structure but I think we have that um characteristic I agree with what have you said and I think that we need to learn the the boundaries of design and the other disciplines and and to work collaboratively because if not we are not going to be able to deliver the solutions with the required urgency but but I think we need to actually get us out of the drawing sets and the presentations and and and start making conversations with the decision makers with the communities and I think also you appreciate the the projects that you presented Ana I think they are a very good example of how to approach our community and this you know empowering the community I think that's very important some projects the you lead the community and the some friends also neglect their landscape and I think that we need to change our mindset totally and I would add to that that the larger the scale the the more complex and so I think that as designers we can put the tools of design at the service of other disciplines communities decision makers because we can represent and if we are able to represent and visualize these complexities by virtue of the tools that we know how to use and then maybe informed by science and maybe teaming up with people that are experts in video or cinema I think I think this is an interesting topic that was that was touched on a on a previous presentation and it's something that's super interesting to us because many times we feel that the discussion remains in a very close circle of designers and we need these ideas to be able to reach broader audiences in simpler language and it's just I don't know it's just exciting for us to to it's it's it's worrying the situation that we're living in but it's also exciting to know that that it not everything is defined it's an it's an exciting moment to redefine what design can do for for us and for it for everyone I mean that that includes also talking about topics that are very wide and planetary such as climate change which I think design has touched but just laterally like tangentially and we believe there are a lot of things that can be done as an experimental approach but need to start happening because we are on the side of that conversation and as Anna just mentioned the Green New Deal is a is a is a good starting point to talk about this how to make those efforts spatial how to make those efforts happen in territories at whatever scale they need to happen right but we need to start engaging those conversations so we're very happy about this for this initiative and this event because it sets up that conversation well we would like to thank everybody like the from this panel and all the panels and the sessions and also to the public for keeping up with us from noon EST and understanding the potential this sort of engagements have in a virtual environment like the one where this hybrid physical and virtual environment we're facing nowadays so now I'm going to give it up for Paola Sarate from UPenn to wrap up the session and yeah that was a really really great discussion and thank you please Tina for passing it over really quick just happy Earth Day again to everyone it was kind of a coincidence that we ended up doing the conference on Earth Day on a topic that is so prevalent to to what today stands for especially in the design practice so like you see on the side my name is Paola Sarate I'm a master student of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania's through avoids school of design so as this conference comes to a close we wanted to say thank you again to our presenters for amazing work and stimulating conversation and again thank you to all those who could join us today this is an event that has been a dream for some time and Gabriella Osvaldo Cristina Maria Lucia and myself we're also grateful that you could participate in this day with us we wanted to come together as a collective across these four institutions to be able to present to you a diverse perception and interpretation of the term resilience and how the term both inspires how the term inspires both opportunity and challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean and we had over 400 people register from all over the world for this event and we're able to represent the following countries we were able to represent Uruguay, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Brazil, the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, the Dominican Republic and the East so we hope that we were able to begin a conversation here with all of you today on the concept of untangling resilience and that you will take with you the curiosity and possible inspiration to keep this conversation going beyond this conference and so as representatives from UPenn, Harvard, MIT and Colombia we really enjoyed the opportunity to be able to put this conference together and we hope for the Latinx groups from these institutions to be able to do this again in the years to come so once again thank you on behalf of the four institutions and we hope that you guys enjoy the rest of your day