This year marks the second time that the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) travels to Latin America since 1998. The 2016 conference “Cross-Americas: Probing Disglobal Networks” held at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile School of Architecture exposed architectural and academic practices that are greatly involved with local and customized issues in communities worldwide, capable of turning away from global architectural and urban influences into local narratives.
Full-time Woodbury University faculty member Marcel Sanchez-Prieto presented two papers at the 2016 conference in Santiago, Chile: “Mass Dwelling: Tijuana/San Diego domestic lifestyles and systems of appropriation” and, together with his partner Adriana Cuellar, “A river runs through it: opportunism of coexistence.” They also presented two projects: Casa de las Ideas and Health Assistance Module, both selected to receive the event’s special merit award out of four awarded projects.
Projects and papers are part of the research of Marcel Sanchez’s practice CRO studio and design studios developed at Woodbury University, constructing a body of knowledge on historical and emergent housing typologies within the political and economic landscapes of the US-Mexico border region San Diego and Tijuana. Sanchez’s research keynotes the relevance of architectural spatial organization, speculation of land, and the relation of public/private developments.
View photos of the congress on Facebook.