Architecture as an Excuse: Social agency, spatial justice and regenerative design

Design and architecture serve as catalysts for agency in the natural and built environment. Architecture as an excuse begins by questioning sustainability as an unsustainable principle. It seeks to value comprehensive and sensitive thinking towards the systems in which we live, where transdisciplinary approaches are fundamental. It is in this overlap between disciplines that spatial justice and regenerative design serve as approach platforms to work and promote more environmentally just, regenerative environments that dignify the human condition, represented in a body of work carried out in the last 15 years.

Join this lecture given by Michael Smith-Masis (University of Costa Rica), with a response from Nuria Alvarez (The Bartlett), chaired by Joana Gonçalves (The Bartlett). 

Speaker biographies

Michael Smith-Masis is an Architect (2005) from San José - Costa Rica, Master in Sustainable Environmental Design from the Architectural Association of London (2008) and Loeb Fellow from Harvard University (2019). He is Director of the Entre Nos Atelier Central Office and the Spatial Justice Platform. He is a professor and researcher at the University of Costa Rica, Universidad Veritas, Tecnológico de Monterrey and the Universidad de los Andes. His work has received important awards and distinctions at the national and international level, promoting participation, collaboration, spatial justice and sustainability.

Nuria Alvarez studied architecture and urbanism at ETSA Madrid, Polytechnic University of Madrid and the AA. She is codirector of the practice Canales Lombardero, and previously worked for Machado Silvetti. She teaches studio 4B at the Msci Programme at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL and Diploma 8 at the Architectural Association. Nuria completed her PhD at the University of Seville, examining the gendered boundaries of modern urban planning. She has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as the book Arquitectas: Redefining the Practice, which was awarded at the XIII Spanish Biennale. She codirected the research initiative Politics FabLab, whose results are in the book Politics of Fabrication. Currently, she is part of the research cluster All Possible Lives

Joana Gonçalves is an architect and urbanist from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, with a MA degree in Environment and Energy from the AA and PhD from the University of São Paulo. As a graduate architect, she worked for Oscar Niemeyer office in Rio de Janeiro. She was an Associate Professor at FAUUSP between 1998 and 2019. Currently, she is an Associate Professor at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL working as an environmental tutor in the BSc and MSci in Architecture, and a Course Tutor of the AA Environmental Technical Studies. Joana is a researcher with recent projects related to Brazilian Modernism, Urban Density and the Informal City. She is the author of the book The Environmental Performance of Tall Buildings (2010) with Routledge, and of a number of technical publications. Throughout her academic career, Joana has also worked as an Environmental Design Consultant with projects in Latin American cities.

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Image: Cueva de Luz, San José, Costa Rica, 2016 by Entre Nos Atelier