10.13125/américacrítica/3012
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
2532-6724
3012
2
en
urn:nbn:it:unica-22243
Antonio di Campli
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
América Crítica
Designing Latin America. Spatial justice, social hierarchy, and power practices
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/cisap
1
Sezione tematica: Linguaggi dell’urbanizzazione e visioni della città
2018-01-27
2017-08-22
2018-01-27
2018-01-27
139-166
1
Antonio di Campli
2017
10.13125/américacrítica/3012
139
Università di Camerino, Italy
2532-6724
2
en
166
urn:nbn:it:unica-22243
Designing Latin America. Spatial justice, social hierarchy, and power practices
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/cisap/article/download/3012/pdf
1
                                          2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017




               DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL
                             HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES
                                                                           ANTONIO DI CAMPLI
                                                                       Università di Camerino




DISEÑANDO AMÉRICA LATINA. JUSTICIA ESPACIAL, JERARQUÍA SO-
CIAL Y PRÁCTICAS DE DISEÑO.
RESUMEN:
Este ensayo es un intento de codificación de un      que la arquitectura asumió como práctica in-
discurso entre algunas experimentaciones de          crustada y figura discursiva para el despliegue
diseño y planificación urbano latinoamericanas       de nuevas estructuras de poder. En este sentido,
de los 2000, cuyos lazos disciplinarios forjaron     estas reflexiones son un intento de definir la
alianzas con estructuras emergentes de gober-        respuesta de la arquitectura a la persistente
nanza urbana y cuyos medios y fines profesio-        condición colonial en estados, ciudades y regio-
nales se alinearon implícitamente con narrati-       nes de América Latina y el surgimiento de nue-
vas urbanas postcoloniales. Al excavar las lu-       vas formas de diseño y de sus tecnologías de
chas de la descolonización alrededor de algunas      poder para contrarrestarlas en el contexto de la
ciudades latinoamericanas y las crecientes asi-      reafirmación del capitalismo neoliberal o de
metrías entre la ciudad 'Letrada' e 'Iletrada' que   discursos neo-bolivarianos.
resultaron, es posible revelar el papel central

KEYWORDS: URBANISMO        POSCOLONIAL,    RESISTENCIA, BANDOLERISMO     SOCIAL,   CIUDAD   LETRADA,
PODER




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Antonio di Campli
Designing Latin America. Spatial Justice, Social Hierarchy, and Design Practices.
2017 ⎸América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017: 139-166.
DOI: 10.13125/américacrítica/3012
140                                                                          ANTONIO DI CAMPLI




Introduction                                        This article assembles a narration with
                                                 sets of projects, statements, narrations,
   Spatial Justice, Social Hierarchy, and
                                                 events and figures, the whole of which
Power Practices. Designing Latin America is
                                                 constitutes less an ‘alternative’ history of
an attempt to codify a discourse concern-
                                                 architecture than a history of Latin
ing some Latin America’s urban and
                                                 American discoursive and professional
planning design experimentations of the
                                                 present. In addition, this is not a treatise
2000s. These experimentations have dis-
                                                 of ‘learning from’, as one may assume
ciplinary ties that forged alliances with
                                                 from the scope of material I draw upon.
emergent structures of urban gover-
                                                 Rather, it insists on the fact that in order
nance, as well as professional means and
                                                 to truly grasp what Latin American ar-
ends implicitly aligned with postcolonial
                                                 chitecture has become today, we need to
urban narratives. By excavating the
                                                 read it through a history of its discour-
struggles of decolonization around some
                                                 sive outlines, disciplinary territories,
Latin American cities, and the growing
                                                 epistemological contours and technical
asymmetries between ‘Lettered’ and ‘Un-
                                                 practices that constitute an entangled
lettered’ cities that resulted, it is possible
                                                 ‘political discourse’. Thus, far from pe-
to reveal the central role that architecture
                                                 ripheral or weird objects to be consumed
took on as both practice embedded in,
                                                 by architectural critic’s centripetal ap-
and discursive cypher for the unfolding
                                                 petite for the exotic, this text identifies
of new power structures. In this sense,
                                                 more of a methodological scope through
these reflections are an attempt to define
                                                 which it is possible to examine how ar-
an architecture’s response to the persis-
                                                 chitecture discovered a political instru-
tent colonial condition of states, cities
                                                 mentality in its entanglements with the
and regions across Latin America. More-
                                                 informal, the peripheral, the banditish,
over, they try to define the rise of new
                                                 and the ‘legally exogenous’1. This discus-
forms of design and its power technolo-
gies, which are meant to counter these           1 The reference is to how the concept of social
latter in the context of the reaffirmation       banditry has haunted the Latin American imagi-
of neoliberal capitalism or neo-Bolivarian       nation. As a cultural trope, banditry has always
discourses.                                      been an uneasy compromise between desire and
                                                 anxiety, and it is possible to isolate three main


                      2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES               141


sion is located precisely at the interface             public spaces, passing through the rise of
between fear and the intrinsic potential               mobility infrastructures as devices for re-
embodied in ‘unlettered’ urban spaces,                 duction of spatial fragmentation, and ar-
that is territories that are indeed a fertile          riving to the experimentations of ‘striat-
ground for innovation. As social, eco-                 ed’ urban spaces. Venezuela, Ecuador,
nomic and intellectual frontiers, they                 Mexico and California are the main loca-
seem to be fragments, ’zones of excep-                 tions of this narration.
tion’, well suited for entrepreneurial en-
deavors and design experimentations.                   1. A fragmented theory
However, there is a caveat: if these                      This first set of reflections is con-
threshold areas are ready for innovative               cerned with the experimentation of inno-
appropriation, they can just as well be                vative socio-spatial devices in the context
negatively conceived or appropriated.                  of the Latin American city; a place
Therefore, it is not possible to be entirely           marked by both class and ethnic frag-
optimistic, and it is necessary to remem-              mentation, and the presence of vast sys-
ber that margins and borders are key                   tem of thresholds or interfaces articulat-
sites where power may reassert its                     ing relationships between formality and
strength (by censoring the Otherness),                 informality, that is lower class suburban
and expands its reach (by filling juridical            spaces, spaces of exception, fractures, so-
voids).                                                cial condensers and systems of enclaves
   To tell this story, the text traces an arc          along environmental or mobility infra-
starting from the invention of hybrid pro-             structures. These situations can be seen
totypes of multilayered public and semi-               as a source of alternative values and vi-
                                                       sions of everyday life for most southern
representational strategies. The first one concerns
the bandit as radical other, a figure through          Americans. It is in the ‘thresholds’ be-
which the elites depicted the threats posed to         tween underdevelopment and over re-
them by various sectors outside the lettered city.     finement that it is possible to look for in-
The second one involves the bandit as a trope          novative urbanism discourses. The hy-
used in elite internecine struggles, where rural
                                                       pothesis is that it is possible to look at
insurgency was a means to legitimize or refute an
opposing sector or faction within the lettered city.   these situations as fragmented spatial
Finally, in certain cases, the bandit was used as an   capital, as agents of transformation, and
image of the non-state violence that the nation        as a support and place of potentiality.
state had to suppress as a historical force and si-    These systems of thresholds, interfaces
multaneously exalt as a memory in order to
                                                       and fragments can be places of experi-
achieve cultural coherence and actual sovereign-
ty.                                                    mentation of urban mutation, seen as an


                         2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
142                                                                      ANTONIO DI CAMPLI


alteration after which the urban space        Ecuador, ‘Con Lo Que Hay’ (With What
might have changed its nature. The re-        is Available) is an academic architecture
search question is: how is it possible to     studio within the Faculty of Architecture
make these spaces democratic resources?       of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del
New design narratives are at stake (di        Ecuador, in Quito, for levels seven and
Campli 2016).                                 eight as a pre-professional opportunity
   In the past two decades, a new genera-     where students ultimately apply their
tion of architects has emerged in Latin       academic knowledge along with social
America, reinstating a sense of optimism      work within a specific community.
to the idea that urban designers can, one        In the 1980s and 1990s, Medellín was
more, make a significative difference in      the murder capital of Latin America.
the city-making of the so-called global       Here, a sequence of mayors, in particular
South.                                        Sergio Fajardo, realized new kinds of ur-
   In Venezuela, the Urban Think-Tank         ban open spaces, civic equipments and
(U-TT), an office founded by Venezuelan       infrastructures that help improving the
Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klem-         city. However, it was the organization of
perer, designed and realized in the bar-      the relationships between dwellers, ac-
rios of Caracas what they defined as ‘ver-    tors and stakeholders to be more radical
tical gyms’. These are structures con-        than the new buildings and public spa-
ceived as a progression of layers corre-      ces per se.
sponding to a superposition of uses and          Along the US-Mexico border, a differ-
functions, as well as a set of innovative     ent kind of urban designer is at work.
urban devices designed to give an ener-       Teddy Cruz has theorized the role of the
gizing effect in their communities. U-TT      activist architect, by marking a form of
also designed cable-car systems located       design-practice based in the engagement
in hillside slums, hence connecting the       with the complicated business of policy.
informal city to the city centre and im-         Some specific elements characterize
proving the mobility of Caracas slum          these experiences: the design strategies
dwellers. In Caracas, the architectural of-   pointing out forms of urban transforma-
fice Pico Estudio focuses on the defini-      tion and densification focused on multi-
tion of new urban environments and so-        plication of uses, and the identification of
cial infrastructures that allow establish-    innovative social interaction devices.
ing new methodologies of cooperation,         This ‘tangle’ of different design strategies
fabrics of horizontal organizations, and      and experiences can be ordered in three
forms of collective governance. In            main families, or threads, described in


                     2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES               143


this sequence: ‘urban acupuncture’, ‘net-       they could be imagined as 'zones of
works’ and ‘club sandwiches’.                   agreement': areas for positive encounters
                                                and enjoyment that generate other ways
1.1 The First Thread                            of coexisting. The strategy of Espacios de
                                                Paz consists of focusing on specific places
   In 2014 the Venezuelan firm PICO Es-
                                                that can both generate dialogue and start
tudio, in hand with the National Govern-
                                                the generation and transformation of the
ment of Venezuela, organized Espacios de
                                                habitat. An example of these kind of spa-
Paz (EDP) (Spaces for Peace), an ambi-
                                                ces is the one realised in Petare, one of
tious exercise in urban acupuncture and
                                                the densest slums of Caracas. Here PICO
participative design where professionals,
                                                Estudio transformed an informal build-
students, local residents and public enti-
                                                ing occupying a footprint of approxi-
ties worked together to benefit from their
                                                mately 120 m2 into a community space
cities and people. This initiative activated
                                                hosting multipurpose areas: a recording
urban processes of physical and social
                                                studio, a computer area, bathrooms, a
transformation through architecture, us-
                                                kitchen and a rooftop basketball court.
ing self-building techniques in public
                                                The design process tried to be flexible in
spaces located in conflictive urban con-
                                                order to accommodate future changes
texts. By transforming unused spaces
                                                and uses.
such as empty plots and unregulated
                                                   (See Image 01 – p. 157)
landfill areas, the projects sought to cre-
                                                   In engaging with the Venezuelan in-
ate social dynamics that invite new ways
                                                formal city, the U-TT architectural design
of living in communities, thus transform-
                                                office developed a methodology to maxi-
ing categories that rule daily life: the use
                                                mize the amount of functions and social
of time and space. The aim of this chal-
                                                activities that a single parcel of urban
lenging project was to create social dy-
                                                soil could give (Brillembourg and Klem-
namics which invite new ways of living
                                                perer 2011; Gehl 2013; Lerner 2015). In
in communities, modifying categories
                                                2001, this strategy was tested on the
that rule daily life, transforming vacant
                                                Mama Margarita orphanage. U-TT de-
plots into powerful spaces for their in-
                                                signed a football pitch on the roof, gain-
habitants. These urban spaces were de-
                                                ing two productive stories out of a use-
signed to both act as 'intermediary spa-
                                                less space. In the district of La Cruz in
ces' within areas where social exclusion
                                                Caracas a building defined as a ‘vertical
is a dominant issue, and to promote a
                                                gymnasium’ has been realized2. This Ver-
culture of peace and coexistence among
the residents of the barrio. Consequently,      2 See: http://u-tt.com/gimnasio-vertical-chacao/


                       2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
144                                                                      ANTONIO DI CAMPLI


tical Gymnasium, constructed in 2003 at       a sample of drying, fermentation and
over 1,000 m2, consists of a fitness com-     roasting processes.
plex with basketball courts, a dance stu-        These three spaces are sheltered by a
dio, a weight room, a running track, a        large natural roof that leaves a free ago-
rock-climbing wall and an open-air soc-       ra-type space for the community to live
cer field. The former training ground         together, to stay and play. This entire in-
was located at street level, and due to the   frastructure is built on the principles of
densely built surroundings, it could not      "what is available", that is, traditional lo-
expand outwards. The solution was             cal materials and local knowledge, ances-
therefore to build upwards.                   tral technologies and knowledges.
   (see Images 2 – p. 157 and 3 – p. 158)        (see Image 4 – p. 158)
   In the Kichwa community of Santa
Rita, Ecuador, ‘Con Lo Que Hay’ work-
shop from PUCE-FADA and the architec-         1.2 The Second Thread
ture studio ‘ensusitioarq’, designed the
                                                 The Caracas Metrocable is the most sig-
Cocoa Interpretation Center, locally
                                              nificant urban legacy of the Hugo
known as The Cocoa Cabin. This is as a
                                              Chávez era. It is a gondola lift system in-
space intended for the analysis, dissemi-
                                              tegrated with the city's public transport
nation and understanding of local cul-
                                              network providing quick transportation
ture and traditions. Reasserting the prin-
                                              for those who live in the slums located in
ciples of assessment and cultural under-
                                              Caracas' mountainous regions. The sys-
standing, 'Con Lo Que Hay' defined the
                                              tem was built as a tool for social reform,
main activities and the spaces the com-
                                              with stations set up to accommodate a
munity wanted: spaces for hand crafts,
                                              variety of services such as daycares, li-
for culinary activities and for the cocoa
                                              braries, police stations, markets and the-
transformation processes. This shaped
                                              atres. The Metro Cable car system has a
the project with three platforms: the ac-
                                              length of 2.1 km and consists of a funicu-
cess and welcoming deck where the com-
                                              lar system with a capacity of 8 passen-
munity has the chance to show and pro-
                                              gers each. The total system capacity is es-
duce their craft; the deck, consisting of
                                              timated at about 1,200 people per hour in
an open fire where the culinary culture is
                                              each direction. The Metro Cable Stations
discovered and tourists can make their
                                              provide more than just transport: they
own traditional local dishes, such as
                                              are hubs for social services and other
chontacuro or carachamamaito; and finally
                                              community activities. Though the five
the cacao processes deck, which contains
                                              stations share a basic set of components


                     2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES         145


and designs, such as platform levels,            that the plots may be cut into slices, each
wheelchair ramps, circulation patterns,          one with a distinct zoning, able to host
material and structural elements, they           different housing typologies or public
differ in configuration and in the possi-        uses. One of the plots, defined by Cruz
bility of additional functions addressing        ‘Living Rooms at the Border’, has been
other community needs.                           designed into several rows: one for small
   (see Images 5 and 6 – p. 159)                 apartments, one for large family houses,
                                                 one for live-works units for artists, and
1.3 The Third Thread                             one for flexible units providing tempo-
   In the first two threads, experimenta-        rary accommodation for guests or rela-
tions on new social interaction devices,         tives. According to Cruz, pressing so
as well as urban densification strategies,       many uses and residential typologies
are obtained by overlapping multiple             into one land parcel made the spatial
uses and functions on the same space,            scheme innovative; nontheless, it was the
working in section rather than in plan.          set of social relation that may be estab-
The third thread relates to the so-called        lished between them to be even more in-
'Club Sandwich Urbanism’ as developed            teresting. What is innovative about this
by the Guatemalan architect Teddy Cruz.          project is the different uses of the set of
While in the acupuncture and network             land. Cruz tried to define a new concept
strategies the focus is on the section, here     of urban density by abandoning the idea
the core of the action is on the plan, on        that it is something that can be measured
the horizontal articulation of the urban         in number of inhabitants per acre; in fact,
lot or parcel (Cruz 1999).                       it can be rather redefined in terms of so-
   What Cruz has been investigating in           cial and economic exchanges per acre.
the San Diego district of San Ysidro is a        What is missing, according to Cruz, is a
new model of participative micro-devel-          focus on the design of the protocols of
opment, which, working with a local              the interfaces between communities and
NGO called Casa Familiar, provides social        spaces.
services3. With Casa Familiar as the basis           (see Images 7 and 8 - p. 160, and 9 - p.
of the project, Cruz transformed two             161)
semi-abandoned plots of land into a
dense program of low-cost housing and
social equipments.                               2. A Theory of Fragments
   The strategy adopted by Cruz was                This second set of reflections offers
3 See: http://estudioteddycruz.com               some critiques on the design approaches

                        2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
146                                                                           ANTONIO DI CAMPLI


and techniques dealing with the urban           bawm wrote a small, yet powerful book
transformation in informal contexts de-         entitled Bandits. In this publication he
scribed in the previous chapter. It             talked about ‘social bandits’ as agents of
demonstrates that these approaches are          resistance in rural societies 4 (Hobsbawm
largely located within the framework of         1959; 1969).
the so-called ‘postcolonial urban theory’,         The social bandit, according to Hobs-
that is a resistance discourse against cul-     bawm, was a noble robber, embodying
tural hegemony, aiming to define ‘outlaw        the virtues of Robin Hood by robbing the
languages’, progressive forms of bottom-        rich and giving to the poor. Bandits ex-
up planning, and new analytical and so-         pressed social protest among the peas-
cial representation tools. In this dis-         ants and were thus regarded as heroes,
course appears a ‘banditish’ figure of ar-      contrary to the view of the authorities
chitect - as Eric Hobsbawm would say -,         who branded them as criminals. In cer-
which, as the inventor of new social            tain cases social bandits could lead the
thresholds, spaces of resistance or of in-      way, and in that sense, form a part of re-
troverted urban devices, implicitly coun-       bellion or revolt, which is why Hobs-
teracts and reaffirms rooted colonial vi-       bawm had originally cast them as primi-
sions and conditions. A threshold is a          tive rebels (Hobsbawm 1959; 1969).
particular kind of territory that, as Fou-         Bandits are described as figures of so-
cault suggested, is with no doubt a geo-        cial protest and rebellion who positively
graphical notion, but first of all a juridic-   figure in specific local communities and
political one, that is the area controlled      territories. They tend to operate at the
by a certain kind of power (Foucault            borders of social strata, at times teetering
1980). Design, in turn has to be political,     precariously at both the edges of the
constructed and negotiated.                     communities and classes of which they
   In this sense, what is at stake is the ne-   are part of, as well as the power struc-
cessity to go beyond the reaffirmation of       tures with which they must deal. The ur-
resistance design attitudes centered on         ban hegemonic cultural system normally
issues such as ‘creativity’ and ‘resilience’,   considers these figures and their commu-
in order to define a clearly alternative de-    nities as belonging to rural territories,
sign discourse.                                 that are at the same time mysterious and
                                                dangerous.
2.1 Architects as Social Bandits
                                                4 Eric Hobsbawm's concept of 'social banditry',
  In 1969, the distinguished British eco-       was first voiced in Primitive Rebels (1959) and lat-
nomic and social historian Eric Hobs-           er expanded on in Bandits (1969).


                       2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES              147


   The construction of outlaw heroes im-       concept of social banditry, which legiti-
plies a number of elements that operate        mated crime in the name of justice. The
together to provide a recurring frame-         cinematic resurrection in 1967 of Bonnie
work that effectively sustains and rein-       and Clyde, who robbed banks in the
forces itself. The hero is a usually a         1930s, seemed to resonate with students
charismatic individual who is spurred          activists who were stoning and bombing
into defiance by an often relatively minor     banks in California. Social banditry was
incident. By making use of an existing         fashionable then, and it still is today to
narrative framework, within which a            some extent.
crude but often effective moral code is           Polarization has often characterized
embedded, the celebrated outlaw, their         the field of social bandit and outlaw hero
sympathizers, and their oppressors ap-         studies. Hobsbawm argued that the so-
pear to act out a cultural script with their   cial bandit is a reality that motivates cer-
roles pre-determined by the tradition.         tain forms of political resistance to op-
This script almost inevitably leads to a       pressive regimes within peasant soci-
violent denouement. The dead hero,             eties. On the other hand, many historians
then, develops an afterlife that feeds         and anthropologists argued, with de-
back into the tradition keeping the leg-       tailed evidence from case studies of vari-
end alive and providing the basis for the      ous peasant and other economies, that
heroization of the next individual to raise    both “noble” or otherwise bandits do not
a sword, bow, or gun against an oppres-        subvert the status quo, but rather support it
sive power.                                    through networks of interdependence
   Since Eric Hobsbawm’s initial formu-        and collusion with ruling wealth and
lation, there has been a substantial litera-   power elites5. Historians plying the ar-
ture about resistance processes in both
                                               5 To some extent , the concept of social bandit is
rural and urbanized areas. Bandit-lead-
                                               similar to that of organic intellectual as defined
ers and their working-class communities        by Antonio Gramsci. According to Gramsci there
are traditionally viewed by the hegemon-       are two kinds of intellectuals: organic intellectu-
ic system as agents of resistance to ur-       als and traditional intellectuals. The former are
banism and urbanity, as elites define it       structurally linked to particular social classes,
                                               and for this reason they are defined as 'organic';
(Turner 1975; Slatta 1987; Scott 1990; Se-
                                               they contribute to either the maintenance of the
gal 1990; Blok 2001; Seal 2011). Especially    supremacy of an already dominant class, or to
in the 1960s, when students and other          the emergence of a subaltern class, and their 'or-
protests were in the air, people appreci-      ganicity' depends on how much they participate
ated and apparently identified with the        in the process of building the hegemony of a
                                               class (Gramsci 1975).


                      2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
148                                                                         ANTONIO DI CAMPLI


chives have found most of them to be            expressed in these urban designs and
pragmatic, opportunistic self-promoters         planning experiences, is that Latin Amer-
who robbed their fellow peasants along          ican urbanism seems currently to be able
with people with better means. More-                                                th
                                                to innovate and reverse the 20 century
over, through observation, bandits be-
                                                trend, notwithstanding that its tech-
came wily and established linkages not
                                                niques, discourses and imaginaries were
only with their village kin, but also with
                                                mostly borrowed from European or
the powerful. At times, they had both
                                                North American approaches, that is
strong political convictions and ambi-
                                                more generally, from the so-called West-
tions and aimed more at entering society
                                                ern Urban Theory. Nonetheless, concepts
than changing it (Block 1972).
                                                such as ‘urban acupuncture’, ‘networks’
   According to Hobsbawm, these social
                                                or ‘club-sandwiches’ used to frame this
bandits were the outputs of frictions be-
                                                ‘Radical’, ’Southern’ or ‘Insurgent’ 6 ur-
tween modernization processes and per-
                                                banism (McFarlane 2008; Pieterse 2014;
sistency of traditional forms of social and
                                                Schindler 2016), are characterized by
spatial production that had modified tra-
                                                some limitations, including the absence
ditional peasant life-styles and visions.
                                                of a clear attention to traditional class an-
Hobsbawm found these bandits, often
                                                tagonism. For example, urban acupunc-
protected in their activities by their local
                                                ture is traditionally presented as an ap-
communities, both pre-political and, un-
                                                proach aiming to stimulate the city’s ner-
der many aspects, ineffective and limited
                                                vous system with tiny interventions that
motors of social change. Still, he celebrat-
                                                can have a catalytic effect on the ‘organ-
ed them.
                                                ism’ as a whole. This approach seems to
                                                place a lot of faith in specific solutions to
2.2 The Limits of Resilience
                                                the problems of slums, particularly those
   It is possible to both build on and de-      that improve transport links or that undo
part from Eric Hobsbawm’s original for-         stigma, introducing, for example, iconic
mulations about banditry, by reconsider-        architectures in derelict areas. On the
ing the figure of the social bandit as a        other hand, too little faith is placed in
metaphor to highlight some attitudes            lower classes’ ability to challenge exist-
characterizing the type of architect and        ing social relations that produce these
urban planner involved in the definition        problems (Davis 2007).
of the strategies and design experiences
                                                6 I consider these three terms as interchangeable
presented in this text.                         even if the locution ‘Southern Urbanism’ seems to
   Central to the encouraging attitudes         be more directly related to African contexts.


                       2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES                149


   In urban planning strategies and dis-              1976; Mackrell, Turner et al. 1974; Turner,
courses, the design attitudes expressed               Turner 1988; Lobo 1982; Leeds 1994).
in the three main ‘threads’ discussed in              Creativity and resilience, or better ‘subal-
this text can be considered as an expres-             tern resilience’ (Bracke 2016; Chandler,
sion of what can be described as a tacti-             Coaffee 2017) are concepts easily con-
cal approach to urban planning and de-                verging and intermingling. They implic-
sign, aimed at addressing issues such as              itly support the persistent colonial vi-
uncertainty, social inclusion, participa-             sions and attitudes still permeating Latin
tion and design of evolutionary urban                 American cities and territories, rather
contexts. Explicitly, these design experi-            than openly criticizing or challenging
ences are optimistic and radical; howev-              them, ultimately leaving Latin American
er, on a deeper level, they can be seen as            urban dwellers with almost as little faith
pessimistic and conservative, consider-               in the future. The situation may improve,
ing that the actual characters of the Latin           but only modestly and incrementally, as
American city are in the end incon-                   it cannot be totally changed. Like its ide-
testable, and claiming, at the same time,             ological twin of ‘sustainable urbanism’
that architects’ main role is fundamental-            before it, 'resilient cities’ is proving to be
ly to negotiate cities indisputably gov-              extraordinarily seductive. The creative
erned by a marriage between persistent                and resilient city can easily both with-
colonial values and unchallengeable ne-               stand and rapidly bounce back from
oliberal interests and visions.                       shocks and stresses getting back to the
   Here, two very popular and disputed                desired status quo of socio-spatial pro-
concepts come to the fore simultaneous-               duction, capital accumulation and elite
ly: creativity and resilience, ideas which            wealth capture.
even John Turner recalled when talking                    The insistent reinforcement of the cult
about Lima's barriadas7 (Turner 1965;                 of creativity and resilience has been criti-
                                                      cized by many scholars, notably the Eng-
7 The PREVI project, realized in Lima in the late     lish urban geographer Tom Slater (Slater
1960s, is an example of the experimentation of        2014).
the strategy of ‘incrementalism’ pointing out a           For Slater, resilience and creativity can
third way between Modernism and Postmod-
                                                      be considered as policies and think-tanks
ernism. Latin America's incrementalism is bound
to promote a process without definition (Open         that infect and paralyze both the study
Form), which is defined with small actions en-        and the design of cities, which finally be-
couraging social inclusion and citizen participa-     come having important research topics
tion. The invention of incrementalism can be con-
sidered as the expression of a specific form of re-   sistance of Modernism in Latin America.


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150                                                                            ANTONIO DI CAMPLI


all over the world. According to Slater,                In order to clarify these considera-
the obsession on these two key concepts,             tions, let’s recall the worldwide celebrat-
under many aspects unjustifiably                     ed Medellín’s urban transformations. In
equates the effects of socio-spatial injus-          this case it is useful to shift our attention
tices and the effects of the capital, pre-           from the civilized, post-pacification
senting both as something ‘natural’ and              façade celebrated by media, to the ‘clean-
therefore indisputable8.                             ing’ processes that preceded it. Under
    There is a long and successful history           many respects, Medellín’s true collective
of concepts brought from biological sci-             project does not correspond to the exper-
ences to social sciences, especially re-             imentation of the tropical ‘social urban-
garding the study of cities; ‘urban regen-           ism’ symbolized by prestigious public
eration’ being the most successful recent            buildings, and realized throughout the
example. In the case of resilience, pover-           favelas. It rathercorresponds to the vio-
ty and socio-spatial fragmentations                  lence that secured the city for capital in-
change smoothly from being socio-politi-             vestments before their construction. Cen-
cal creations to naturally occurring phe-            tral here are the old narco paramilitaries
nomena. As an analytic framework, re-                serving both as investors of capital in
silience seems to carefully, and perhaps             their own right, and more generally as
even judiciously, ignore important ques-             murderous guarantors of security for
tions about the contradictions of moder-             capital. The collective project included
nity/coloniality or uneven urban devel-              the murderous sanitization of some pe-
opments. The dark side of urban re-                  ripheral districts in order to make them
silience lies in the obvious, and to its pro-        safe for urban redevelopments, with the
ponents, in the entirely logical sugges-             narco-paramilitary leader Don Berna
tion the word carries: lower class                   representing the “fusion of politics,
dwellers should brace themselves for                 property and organised crime…[which]
scarcity of resources or environmental               largely determines the shape of the built
crisis, and in the end everything will im-           environment” (Hylton 2006; 2007).
prove.                                                  Moreover, the murderous side of the
                                                     collective elite project was not restricted
8 Urban vulnerability, adaptability and climate
                                                     to social whitewashing; it also involved
change are topics frequently related to the con-
cept of resilience; concept intended as the opera-   the murders of activists in the slums, de-
tive frame where projects are able to enhance the    stroyed militant community organiza-
understanding of and the response to natural, en-    tions “for housing, healthcare, education
vironmental, social, economic and technological      and better employment, making many of
shocks, as well as gradual changes.


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DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES       151


the hillside neighbourhoods all but un-         run tactics or to ‘lay ambushes’ focusing
livable” (Hylton 2007).                         on small spatial interventions which of-
   This shows that there are actually two       ten depend on the support of the local
different forms of urban resilience which       populations. Teddy Cruz’s tactics of recy-
contradict each other.                          cling and encroachment across the Tijua-
   The first resilience, as detailed by Tom     na-San Diego border; UT-T’s invention of
Slater, is the neoliberal city facing capital   vertical gymnasiums; and Metrocables
accumulation. The second is the urban           conceived as social condensers, are all an
proletariat resilience, which can overflow      explicit expression of guerrilla discourse.
the limitations the neoliberals want to             As social bandits, it appears to be an
impose on it, moving from supporting            ancient rural astuteness in the inventions
capitalism to challenging it. In Medellin,      of their hybrid infrastructures, spatial
the response of capital was, quite con-         layouts and physical devices, all of
sciously, to destroy the resilience of slum     which are conceived according to an ex-
dwellers through murderous violence.            plicit bricoleur attitude consisting of
                                                searching around for usable bits and
2.3 Design ‘at the Edge of Chaos’ (Beyond       pieces that may be recycled and reassem-
Subaltern Resilience)                           bled with other appropriate spare parts.
                                                The bricoleur invents, but mainly tries to
   As affirmed before, optimism and rad-
                                                find possible answers in what is already
icality go side by side with pessimistic
                                                there, pondering what the objects can of-
and conservative attitudes, both imply-
                                                fer. Finally, the bricoleur does not bother
ing that the traditional colonial charac-
                                                so much about deep transformations of
ters of the Latin American city are, in the
                                                the conditions of the ‘site of production’,
end, hard to dispute, and claiming that
                                                as they seem not to be particularly at-
architects' main role is fundamentally to
                                                tached to a defined plan, ideality or theo-
go into negotiation with rooted values
                                                ry.
and imaginaries.
                                                    ’Acupunctures’,      ‘Networks’     and
   In this sense, the present generation of
                                                ‘Club-Sandwiches’ correspond to ‘smart
radical architects really seems to behave
                                                mechanisms’ that do not seem to be able
as ‘social bandits’. They are explicitly
                                                to define themselves as a whole well-
‘fighting’ to improve the living condi-
                                                structured and explicitly critical new ur-
tions of lower classes, by refusing con-
                                                ban theory, which is grounded on an an-
ventional (rational and omni-comprehen-
                                                tagonistic relationship with not only in-
sive) designs and planning approaches,
                                                herited urban knowledges, but also with
and preferring to either adopt hit-and-


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152                                                                          ANTONIO DI CAMPLI


existing urban formations and processes.       tance 'enclaves' have been conceived and
As a set of isolated actions they do not       secured in different Latin American con-
seem capable of calling dominant visions       texts, provides us with an innovative
and power relations into question: they        range of spatial solutions able to open up
are incapable of formulating a ‘plan’ be-      our imagination about what might be
cause of an obsession with the present.        possible if the design of isolated frag-
What these radical architects seem to get      ments, devices and hybrids were re-
at, with this line of reasoning, is a con-     framed in a more coherent and precise
ceptual short circuit where their hybrid       discourse9 (Ungers 1982). What is at
and appeasing devices find their legiti-       stake, then, is the reinforcement of a
mation only when existing tormented so-        methodology of urban fragments, in-
cio-spatial processes and conditions per-      tended not as anomalies in a static body,
sist. Though often implicitly, these smart     but instead as a mode of generalization
mechanisms, whether in form of archi-          of a radical or insurgent planning theo-
tectural objects, infrastructures or para-
digms of settlements, function as devices
                                               9 A reference in this sense might be the concept
for maintaining peace. In this sense, it is    of Grossform as proposed by German architect
important to highlight that this is not a      Oswald Mathias Ungers. In the 1960s, Ungers
call for ‘better bandits’ as agents seeking    tried to redefine the sense and meaning of archi-
alternative mechanisms: ultimately they        tectural intervention at an intermediate scale be-
                                               tween architecture and urbanism as a counter-
serve the persistence of a dominant ap-
                                               measure to the urbanization processes taking
paratus.                                       place during those years in Europe. The formal
   For these reasons, it is possible to af-    coherence of Grossform (meaning literally “large
firm that there are surely severe limita-      form” in German) could provide a framework
tions in the three radical design experi-      within which the unplannable processes of the
                                               contemporary city played out, while acting as
ences presented in this text, for their sub-
                                               stable markers of identity in an expanding urban
stantial indifference to history and the       field of increasing formlessness. Many of the
abstraction from large social struggles.       ideas introduced in Grossformen would resurface
As a set of isolated enclaves, they do not     throughout Ungers’ career, and eventually find
seem capable of questioning dominant           their way into the better known Green Archipel-
                                               ago project. But where the morphologically pure
power relations, and are incapable of for-
                                               islands in the Green Archipelago form a ‘dialectic
mulating a ‘plan’ because of an obsession      city’ as a federation of ideal fragments, the scale-
with the present. Nonetheless, they are        less concept of Grossform equally suggests the
surely still valuable. The detailing of        possibility of the island itself becoming a ‘dialec-
practical and astute ways in which resis-      tic object’, containing the exacerbated differences
                                               of the archipelago.


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DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES                        153


ry10.                                                  tures11 (Yeoh 2001; Roy 2015; 2011; 2005;
   In this project, discourses and themes              Said 1978, Chibber 2013).
of the so called ‘Postcolonial urban theo-                The Postcolonial urban theory is basi-
ry’ are directly recalled. This is a con-              cally a set of discourses aiming to define
struct traditionally inhabited by the post-            progressive forms of bottom-up plan-
modern concepts of the hybrid,                         ning. The questions traditionally ad-
palimpsest, mestizo, creole, swarm; of the             dressed concern the analysis and repre-
‘fragment’ intended as those elements of               sentation of the city as a field of con-
social life that cannot be easily assimilat-           tention among different social groups;
ed into dominant discourses or struc-                  the ethnic and spatial polarization and
                                                       fragmentation; the role of religious
                                                       movements and traditional elites; the
10 Talking about the relevance of the invention of     claims on the state; the politics of antici-
socio-spatial innovation sites (such as urban          pation; the zones of exception; the
acupunctures, cable cars, favelas or disaster recov-   transnational migrant practices; the self-
ery protocols) in a context characterized by the
                                                       -reliance; and the user involvement in
persistences of pre-hispanic modes concerning
colonial grid structures and socio-spatial produc-     service provision. It is possible to de-
tion within neoliberal economies, it is useful to      scribe these insurgent forms of postcolo-
note that it is not a matter of proposing a new        nial planning as ‘even in the face of pow-
Latino or Mestizo Urbanism. Mestizo is an abstract     er’ and in ‘the interstices’.
concept of ‘mixedness’ that celebrates the obliter-
ation of difference in a democratic, non-hierarchi-    11 Brenda Yeoh, in her paper “Postcolonial
cal form. It holds up a generalized image in           Cities” (2001), analyses the postcolonial debate
which racial, regional and even class differences      by locating the ‘postcolonial’ in the ‘urban’ and
are submerged into a common identification with        reflecting on three major aspects visible in the
mixedness. In many Latin American countries,           cities with colonial past: the struggle for identity,
the mestizo cult became allied to indigenismo, that    the encounters between the colonial and the post-
is the glorification of the Indian, since the latter   colonial, and the conflict of Heritage. Ananya
was to be integrated and ‘mestizoised’. Either way,    Roy, in her paper “Postcolonial Urbanism: Speed,
these ideologies remain in the conceptual prison       Hysteria, Mass Dreams” (2011), suggests a shift
of racism as they still made reference to in-          from postcolonial as a urban phenomenon to
grained human differences. The point is, howev-        postcolonial as a ‘critical, deconstructive method-
er, that they explicitly denied the assumed racial     ology’ so that the authoritative and hegemonic
and cultural superiority of the European, while        understanding of colonized cities might be revis-
still projecting an image of mestizo homogeneity.      ited, and voices of the subaltern groups can be
This ideology can take on the appearance of pure       brought to the debate. Ananya Roy illustrates her
rhetoric. Frequently, it is a part of a nationalist    claims by deconstructing the ‘worlding practices
platform, propagated by political elites seeking to    theory’ through the examples of three Asian
create a unified basis of support.                     cities, namely Shenzhen, Dubai and Mumbai.


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154                                                                         ANTONIO DI CAMPLI


   Postcolonial practices and theories of      ‘good governance’ with lots of account-
planning, output of massive global-eco-        ability mechanisms12. Both the traditional
nomic processes taking place in various
cultural backgrounds and contexts of the       12 As colonialism (and more recently neo-colo-
so called Global South, have surely mul-       nialism) was practiced by western countries in
                                               the Americas, Africa and Asia, the western Urban
tiple patterns of manifestation. However,
                                               Theory was widely adopted in Southern colo-
what marks them is their explicit ‘infor-      nized countries. Produced in the context of high-
mality’ and attention to the invention of      ly urbanized cities such as London, Madrid, Paris
‘narratives’ where different visions and       and Amsterdam, the traditional urban theories
values clash. Since the late 20th century,     were dominated by the urbanization experiences
                                               of Global North. Derived from this historical rea-
scholars coming from non-Western coun-
                                               son, traditionally planning legislation in colo-
tries have contributed to the Postcolonial     nized countries was simply following the west-
debate and have defined the term trans-        ern traditional urban theory for a long time.
forming its original meaning. It is possi-     However, with the rapid expansion of urban
ble to say that this radical or insurgent      scale and population growth in the globe, the tra-
                                               ditional planning theory gradually became inap-
planning is largely a ‘slum-based’ resis-
                                               propriate for dealing with current urban issues,
tance discourse against all-embracing          especially for Latin America. Postcolonial Urban
and comprehensive top-down urban in-           Theory from the Global South, however, focuses
terventions.                                   on informality, indigenous movements, local con-
   In this discourse, a strange relation-      trol, traditional practices, insurgent and radical
                                               planning. Compared with the traditionally domi-
ship between the traditional western ur-
                                               nant western viewpoints (colonial power), this
ban theory and the so called postcolonial      theory saw the problem from the perspective of
urban theory appears (Edensor, Jayne           the Global South (former colonial countries).
2012; Robinson 2006; Soja 2000). The tra-      Postcolonial urban theory tended to overturn and
ditional western urban theory is normal-       challenge the traditional dominance of western
                                               theory in planning and urbanism (for instance by
ly characterized by cartographic visions
                                               applying participatory budgeting to avoid cor-
and top-down planning processes sym-           ruption and waste during planning process,and
bolized by the presence of specific con-       by acknowledging various informal settlements
ceptual devices, such as the public space      in law). A series of debates argued that by accom-
intended as the main democratic ele-           panying the shift from the colonialism theory to
                                               the postcolonial urban theory in the 20th century,
ment; the distinction between public and
                                               the research priorities of the urban theory had al-
private spaces (i.e. intimacy and publici-     ready moved to the cities of the global South,
ty); the rational large-scale infrastructure   such as Beijing, Cairo, Mumbai, Mexico City, Rio
systems; the massive capital projects; and     de Janeiro, Johannesburg, etc. These cities are of-
the liberal democratic governance and          ten described as mega-cities, places of abnormal
                                               urban developments with a mass of slums, terri-


                     2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES                155


western theory and the postcolonial ur-            der to define a new paradigm or dis-
ban theory place design practices and              course that is not only an expression of a
methodologies in the service of the                position of resistance or of a subaltern re-
“commons”, creating structures that                silience13. Another route through the
channel the conditions of contemporane-            postcolonial theory is then possible by
ity. At the same time, formality and in-           considering that postcolonialism is a con-
formality, as well as northern structured          cept that can be used not only to analyze
visions and southern informalities in              and describe the ways a city is under-
their normal interaction and conflicts,            stood and represented, but also as a
constitute a ‘complex adaptive system’             structured technique of planning and de-
mutually reinforcing and legitimating              signing. Reconsidered in this way, the
each other’s discourses.                           postcolonial urban theory not only artic-
   It is necessary to overpass this opera-         ulates forces and affects elidinggrips of
tive and conceptual deadlock. In this              colonization, but also may become an
sense, the design experiences discussed            ‘aesthetic of intelligibility’ and a material
in this text, under many aspects, consti-          articulation of innovative design visions.
tute an attempt of innovation and a ‘chal-             Another route is then possible by con-
lenge’ to the traditional Postcolonial ur-         sidering that postcolonial urban theory is
ban theory. The three threads corre-               a complex and layered discourse that can
sponding to ‘Urban Acupunctures’, ‘Net-            be primarily used to analyze and de-
works’ and ‘Club-Sandwiches’ not only              scribe the ways a city is understood and
implicitly or explicitly draw on tradition-        represented, though its range as a struc-
al Postcolonial inquiries and discourses,          tured technique of planning and design-
but also they are able to cope with those          ing is less clear. In this sense, a different
narratives integrating a largely analytical        urban theory which does not simply ar-
discourse which has an explicit de-                ticulate forces against the grips of colo-
sign-oriented attitude characterized by            nization, but is conceived as a tool of ma-
the invention of innovative urban spa-
tialities, devices of social interaction, and      13 The problem is not to highlight the difference
exchange of spatial production models.             between North and South. Under many aspects,
                                                   the postcolonial theory is a way of inhabiting,
What is possible, then, is to innovate
                                                   rather than discarding, the epistemological prob-
those processes of ascendance, emer-               lem posed by western-centrism. The postcolonial
gence and contestation by defying the              theory is then at the same time a way of inter-
grid of postcolonial world-systems in or-          preting and narrating the postcolony and the
                                                   West, or rather the stories the West most often
ble urban transportation, diseases and violence.   tells about itself.


                         2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
156                                                                         ANTONIO DI CAMPLI


terial articulation of innovative design
visions, could be developed. A different
aesthetic of intelligibility linking coher-
ent and precise socio-spatial representa-
tions with structured planning visions is
necessary.
   From social banditry to politics, this is
the challenge. The uncultivated, rough
and ‘slum-based’ resistance discourse
must evolve toward more complex de-
sign ecosystems and dynamics at the
‘edge of chaos’, where the status can be
seen to be maximally unusual while still
connected to that in the ordered regime,
and thus is most likely to exhibit the
combination of novelty and utility14.




14 This particular phrase is here used to denote a
transition space between order and disorder, reg-
ularity and randomness; a region of bounded in-
stability that engenders a constant dynamic inter-
play between order and disorder. This point of
interface between the two is hypothesized to be
the locus for maximum complexity, as well as the
dynamic driving design innovation as in these
regimes, where network states are more discon-
nected from those in the ordered regime.


                        2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES   157




                           Image 1 - Pico Estudios. Espacios de Paz
                        Source: https://www.plataformaarquitectura.cl




                                          Image 2




                      2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
158                                                                            ANTONIO DI CAMPLI




                            Image 3 - UT-T. Vertical Gym.Construction
                      Source: http://www.baunetz.de/meldungen/Meldungen
                       Zumtobel_Group_Award_entschieden_4053827.html




                      Image 4 - Con lo que hay. Cocoa Interpretation Center
 Source: https://www.archdaily.com/771456/cacao-interpretation-center-taller-con-lo-que-hay-4-plu-
                                     s-ensusitio-arquitectura




                       2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES   159




                        Image 5 - UT-T. The Caracas Metrocable. Layout
                             Source: http://u-tt.com/metro-cable/




                     Image 6 - UT-T. Metrocable. La Ceiba Station. Caracas
                              Source: http://u-tt.com/metro-cable/




                      2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
160                                                                         ANTONIO DI CAMPLI




                           Image 7 – Medellín. Metrocable (line K)




      Image 8 - Teddy Cruz. San Ysidro, Casa Familiar. Living Rooms at the Border. Plan
                            Source: http://estudioteddycruz.com




                    2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES             161




      Image 9 - Teddy Cruz.Casa Familiar. San Ysidro, Living Rooms at the Border. Maquette
                             Source: http://estudioteddycruz.com




           Image 10 - Teddy Cruz. Casa Familiar. Living Rooms at the Border. Maquette
                              Source: http://estudioteddycruz.com




                      2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
162                                                                           ANTONIO DI CAMPLI




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                       2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017
                                     2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017




ANTONIO DI CAMPLI
Antonio di Campli is architect and scholar in urban design and theory of urban-
ism. He received a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the University of Chieti-Pescara
and a Master of Architecture from the IUAV University in Venice. His research
projects won grants from Politecnico di Torino, Università di Camerino, Universi-
dad Técnica Particular de Loja. He received prestigious fellowships from EPFL,
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Politecnico di Torino, and Senescyt,
Quito. In 2014 he obtained the National Scientific Qualification to function as an
Associate Professor in Italian Universities. He has taught at many universities in
Europe and Latin America. He has published extensively on the relationships be-
tween urban planning, landscape planning and power. He is regularly involved
in designing, preparing, co-ordinating and delivering modules to a range of stu-
dents on different UG and PGT courses, exploring a range of approaches to L&T.
He currently teaches Theory of Urbanism at the University of Camerino, School
of Architecture and Design, Ascoli Piceno, Italy.


                                                                     Antonio di Campli


                                                                Università di Camerino


                                                           antoniodicampli@gmail.com




                                                                     Received: 22/08/2017
                                                                     Accepted: 12/12/2017




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Antonio di Campli
Designing Latin America. Spatial Justice, Social Hierarchy, and Design Practices.
2017 ⎸América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017: 139-166.
DOI: 10.13125/américacrítica/3012
