Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

El conjunto arquitectónico de la Capilla y el Hospital de San Juan de Dios, fundado en 1874 era una composición que articulaba dos funciones esenciales: la sanación del cuerpo y el abrigo del alma cristiana. Esta duplicidad funcional, parece un sistema connatural interdependiente propio de una arquitectura anterior al racionalismo arquitectónico y coherente con el pensamiento social y político del período colonial chileno que se extendió hasta el principio de la vida republicana.

This article states the need for the use of converging technologies in order to make possible conservation work on vernacular architectural patrimony, which is necessary due to the use of non-industrial and natural materials in construction and processes based on techniques derived from the builders´ experience and oral traditions. The preservation of these patrimonial legacies and cultural assets requires their material conservation beyond the durability of the natural life cycle of the their building materials and operating conditions, in order to overcome the demanding environmental conditions.The diagnosis of the physical preservation of a property requires a series of layers of information that make it possible to define an intervention strategy to restore functional, structural, and aesthetic conditions. From this perspective, it is necessary to register all the physical and material features with the highest possible accuracy. To obtain a systematic evaluation, it is necessary to rely on a critical survey based on direct observation of the building. At present, it is possible to incorporate the use of digital tools designed to obtain detailed and accurate readings of each of the parts and elements of the building. The interface between the building and the computer is defined here as a 3D point cloud.

This paper aims to analyze the characteristics of herding settlements in the highlands of Jujuy province in northwestern Argentina. This analysis takes into account the logic of: siting, spatial layouts, the materiality of these settlements and in particular the way that topography shapes domestic architecture. These buildings have a specific meaning in the context of the settlement systems of pastoral groups in relation to the mobility strategies of families with flocks. The study is based on material from ethnographic fieldwork underway since 2004 in the town of Susques, which has involved a systematic survey of the different types of settlement as part of an investigation into spatiality and pastoral architecture in the Andes.

The vernacular architecture of the Maya of the Yucatán Peninsula, as represented by the Mayan house, is recognized not only for the impact Mayan culture has had recently, but also for its history. This building, which continues as housing nowadays, began in the Mesoamerican period, during which it was reproduced in the ornamentation and arches of monumental architecture. Building knowledge, preserved for centuries in the construction of the Mayan house, was also used in the creation of a new structure called a tablado, which came into being during the process of the appropriation of bullfighting by the Maya of the Yucatán Peninsula and their assigning it meanings from their own world view. This paper describes a portion of the results of a research project that proposes a way of looking at this vernacular expression in the states of Campeche and Yucatán in Mexico.

Este segundo número abocado a la arquitectura vernácula en Latinoamérica reúne siete trabajos de investigadores inspirados en reveladoras tradiciones, que surgen directamente de la experiencia de habitar este extenso y accidentado territorio. Obras emanadas del ingenio y creatividad de antiguos habitantes que, en el transcurso de distintas generaciones, conectaron sabiamente las particularidades de su cultura con las condiciones del lugar, movilizados por el loable anhelo de encontrar la mejor y más bella manera de acoger la vida humana, momento a momento, en armonía con las bondades del lugar y protegiéndose adecuadamente de sus amenazas.

El entendimiento de la práctica, la teoría y la enseñanza de la arquitectura como un solo proceso es algo que se ha repetido en ciertos grupos o movimientos, oficinas de arquitectura y escuelas, alcanzando especial trascendencia en algunos momentos puntuales. El artículo aborda el trabajo de algunas técnicas de enseñanza transferidas de prácticas profesionales o, a la inversa, formas de enfrentarse al proyecto profesional derivadas de técnicas aplicadas en la enseñanza de la arquitectura. Para ser más precisos y no abarcar un sin fin de testimonios, la investigación se concentra en un periodo de la arquitectura que produjo métodos muy diversos de establecer dichas transferencia entre la enseñanza y el proyecto: los movimientos radicales y conceptuales de la década de 1960-1970, y se centra específicamente en la revisión de proyectos de gran escala, desde urbanos a arquitectónicos. El método de trabajo consiste en el estudio contrastado de casos, referido tanto a escuelas de arquitectura, como a proyectos, con el fin de establecer filiaciones y detectar casos arquetípicos de estudio.

This article outlines the process and results of an experience of teaching/learning architecture in México. The purpose was to explore new learning scenarios in the context of the crisis in this profession and in a world where the human being is considered as the subject and object of sustainable development. The project was carried out in the town of Xico, Veracruz, and was organized with research, teaching and social engagement as basic premises, and habitability and sustainability as transverse themes. The data were obtained by observing the site and exploring the collective imaginary using participatory strategies. The learning obtained by the co-participants university, society and local government, showed the strengths of collaborative work as a necessary link for the permanence and development of the profession, and university training and education as a collective construction of society.

The assessment of the subjects in which architectural design is taught is one of the thorniest aspects of teaching architecture, as shown by the confusion that many students often express when they neither critically understand nor accept the grades received. In this article, some reasons that could explain this situation are analyzed. But above all, it studies the possible conceptual foundation and practices that could give rise to an architectural project assessment that meets pedagogical objectives. That is, students are able to understand the meaning and scope of their evaluations so that from that base they can autonomously assess the solutions given to other problems and act accordingly. It should be noted that the purpose of this text is not to propose solutions to a concrete problem, but rather encourage a debate to address, in all its complexity, the current assessment of non-axiomatic subjects in the teaching of the discipline.

“El acto fotográfico, un modo de certificar la experiencia, es también un modo de rechazarla: cuando se confina a la búsqueda de lo fotogénico, cuando se convierte la experiencia en una imagen, un recuerdo (souvenir).”

Arquitecturas del Sur publica en este número siete artículos basados en investigaciones y experiencias académicas a través de los cuales la pregunta de nuestra convocatoria adquirió sentido:¿Qué será aquello que garantiza la subsistencia del fenómeno enseñanza/aprendizaje de la arquitectura, aquel contenido o experiencia que torna la enseñanza de un individuo propiamente arquitectónica, contenido sin el cual la enseñanza de la arquitectura se torna imposible?