The focus of this research is on architectural education and practice as a collective experience, examining the specific case of the PUCV School of Architecture and Design and Ciudad Abierta in Chile. The research asks whether the culture of collectivity that characterises the school has served as a supporting structure for its artistic and pedagogical project and if so, what elements configure the collective ways of studying and practising at this school. The research delves into these questions by following the trail of a concept that crystallises the school’s collective ethos: The Ronda. The notion of Ronda refers to a collective working format practised by the school members. However, this dissertation argues that this concept conveys a much more complex and profound sense of collectivity, related to a disposition to live, work, and study together. Accordingly, the main objective of this research is to trace and analyse the aspects that have nurtured the notion of Ronda, and from there, to identify how have they contributed towards shaping the collective approach to architectural education and practice conceived within the PUCV School of Architecture and Design and Ciudad Abierta. The first phase of the research involved a comprehensive review of the existing literature mapping the presence of the notion of Ronda and identifying the fundamental elements shaping the collective realm that characterises the school. The literature review allowed to distinguish nine communities that have articulated the school as objects of study, which circumscribed areas of inquiry and enabled to look upon the collective dimension of the school’s history from a variety of perspectives. The research strategy was to address the examination of these nine communities by engaging a triangulation of methods that included archival research, interviews, and participant observation. Each of these methods helped to complete the complex landscape of ideas and practices articulating the school’s collective realm that contributed towards nurturing the notion of Ronda and its educational project. The research concludes that the PUCV School of Architecture and Design sets the conditions for the formative experience by constructing a creative milieu in common, understood as a specific environment that is shaped by the school community. The conclusions set forth four perspectives to depict the school’s creative milieu in 10 Ronda common and assert findings concerning the Ronda, proposing it as the invention of a way of interacting through which the school members can give course to their fundamental proposals and understand the school as a collective project. This dissertation enriches the existing literature on the PUCV School of Architecture and Design and Ciudad Abierta by adding an examination of the fundamental notion of the Ronda, which was lacking until now. The research narrows the knowledge gap regarding the Ronda by locating its historical formulation, identifying the elements that converged in its ideation, presenting its characteristics and dynamics in the working process, and explaining the importance it has in the present for the school. The dissertation also participates in the broader debate on architectural education, providing insights on how architectural training can diversify its practices, spaces, and frameworks in new configurations by comprehending a school as an expanded network of communities beyond the academic realm and complementary to university institutions.

In my graduation studio, “Constructing the commons” in the context of Valparaiso, Chile, South America is the topic under the theme “Position in Practice”, in the track of Method and Analysis. Since September last year, throughout the nine months of graduation studio, I have observed, analyzed, researched, reorganized, and envisaged some aspects in the urban to explore what exactly is the real commons in the city.
I am concerned about What are the commons in contemporary and local contexts, what are the commons in the architectural vocabulary, and what are the interventions that we achieve commons by, in practice? My answers to those questions includes the observation and experience in Valparaiso, the research of the common resources, the position regards to co-existence, the choice of the site, and the generation of program, function, atmosphere, as well as the ultimate building.

The historical framework that is underlying the city of Valparaiso, Chile brought a certain type of city planning, one wherein the city operates in fragmentation. Not only in the way how the city operates and solves problems also in the way people deal with each other. Therefore the tackle of bigger problems is not there. In this created lifestyle, these problems tend to come back in a viscus circle. In this project I try to break this circle and the fragmentation. Trying to solve the bigger problems by filtering out key aspects in the city and bringing them together. The project aims to create unity and operates on two scales. The project tries to have effect on a neighborhood by offering different kinds of communal spaces. This part of the program is combined with a ritual which is known in the whole city. To bring smaller expertise’s to one place to solve problems than affecting the whole city. To state what can be down by only the strength of people.

This project aims to take advantage of the leftover space in the city and create a
new type of public space in the high-density low rise residential area. It contains
three parts: firstly, renovating the existing infrastructure---the funicular on the site, which is an important feature of Valparaiso. However, as the development of other modern transportation, the funiculars have been gradually abandoned in recent years. To reserve this unique icon, it is essential to apply a new function and social role to it. This project combined funicular with a community center and create different activities along the funicular track. Secondly, renovating four abandon housings and creating several different projects, which are supposed to be “bookshop”,”sharing kitchen”,”day care center”, and” bakery“ to meet the
need of locals. Together with the design of the vertical parks, this site will become a community center with its own characteristics.

This work investigates the relation between domesticity and productivity in a working-class neighbourhood in Valparaiso, Chile.
The aim of the project was to turn the local manufacturing productions into an economical resource, by providing co-working spaces for the local communities.

BSB Valpo is a project for the revitalization of Valparaíso’s coastline. It is a new hub for listening, dialogue, and recreation showcasing the work of local communities, artists, craftsmen and performers within a haptic landscape open to public exploration.

The scheme was developed through looking at the site from several aspects, starting from the urban scale, moving to the immediate landscape, and finally to the scale of the building and architectural detailing with respect to its multifarious uses. It addresses the unlocking and re-purposing of an uninhabited heritage resource of the coast into a multipurpose public ground with aural considerations.

The choice of re-utilizing the warehouse is not only a step towards sustainable resource management but, also, a recognition of the value in conserving a historical landmark. One that speaks about Valparaiso’s evolution from a commercial port to a cultural capital.

To listen and to make a noise, as sonic acts, formed the premise of the project. Continuing a lineage of inquiry of human conduct that is underpinned by the notion that humans engage in purposeful behaviour; the sonic act in the field of architecture questions how people behave sonically in their environments. The importance of this spatial query is underpinned by the premise that sound is critical for experiential engagement and a defining feature of phenomenological attributes of spaces.

As with many forms of praxeological inquiries that have given form to the typologies of buildings we have come to know and love; the project was underpinned by continual introspection as to the sonic inhabitation of spaces. Throughout the iterative design phases of the project, continual cycles of questions were being asked- What is the sonic behaviour and how does this form spatially (Vis-à-vis)?

The project is situated in Valparaiso, Chile. On the steeps slopes between plan and hill. Drawing on the strong sonic research component the outcome presents four primary spatial interventions that each hold diverse qualities for the sonic act of presence to occur. These are a learning centre; collective school environment; market square; and Sonic Vantage point. Each of which serve as precedent for the utilisation of the sonic act as being a core design tool in defining the spatial logic. The significance of the work is that it aims to test notions of experience, that have over the last two decades gained increasing recognition as being fundamental to architecture and calling for a turn away from the dominance of visual mechanisms.

A self-sufficient Industrial Building, that focuses on the production of 1. Adobe construction materials (mudbricks, rammed earth, la quincha panels, earth-bag technology) 2. Region specific wine (Amphorae clay fermented wine, specialised fruit wines, grappa etc...). Both crafts are synonymous with Chilean culture.
The intervention initially looks at the conservation of these diminishing techniques. The building does not simply operate from a productivity standpoint, but as an institution that researches, educates and exhibits the traditional crafts and potentialities of its future. From an urban standpoint, the intervention also acts as a catalyst in uplifting the surrounding context and promoting urban green space of recreational, social and agricultural value. Reconnecting the urban fabric of the city with the rural fringes. A gateway building between the urban fabric and rural city, and vice versa.

Valparaiso is currently in a state of environmental abandonment that threatens the unique coexistence of rural and urban socio-spatial practices in the peri-urban areas of the city. Local practices of animal husbandry and family farming are dependent on the abundance of water in the streams and the ecosystem of sclerophyll forests. The expropriation of these environmental commons increasingly affects not only nature but the most marginalized inhabitants of Valparaiso as well. In this context, post-humanist perspectives position my theoretical studies and the project takes up the challenge of deconstructing the seeming opposition between nature and culture. I envision the intervention as an environmental care centre that forms an integral part of the forest. It allows the mutually reinforcing coexistence of local socio-spatial practices and ecosystems. The design acts as a fragment that is able to gradually expand in time. As the forest grows so does the project. Poetic writing and spatial metaphors are the main ingredients of my methodology that allowed me to design the intervention as a spatial mediator not only between nature and culture but also between landscape and building, interior and exterior, writing and drawing.

This article addresses the case of the School of Architecture and Design at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso in Chile, which established an original position in arts and education by exploring the productive relationship between poetry and architecture. The focus of this article is to examine the pivotal presence of poetry in
the school’s artistic position and its role in the design and building actions carried out by students and professors, which are an essential trait of its educational approach. The article displays this trajectory from the poetic word to the act of building by discussing a crucial topic raised within inter-nal debates of the School of Valparaíso: the relationship between word and action. While illustrating the role of poetry in the school’s creative practices, the article argues that the poetic word is not instrumentalized as a concrete method or tool in design studio practices, but is present as an underlying element that opens a primordial creative field from which architecture operates. The article aims to contribute to the existing literature by clarifying the role of poetry in the School of Valparaíso’s curriculum, which is a particu- larly unclear aspect surrounded by myths and assumptions. Therefore, this article focuses on the formulation and practice of the ‘poetic act’, its role
in the design and building processes of the school projects, and the way in which the professors and students of the School of Valparaíso proceed with their works after the poetic act that takes place at the start of every project. By clarifying these points, we shine a light on the presence of poetry in the articulation of the school’s artistic production and academic structures, locating the relationship between word and action at the centre of the school’s debates, where it remains open and vividly discussed to this day.

Positions in Practice : Constructing the Commons in the Latin American Metropolis, Graduation Studio (Msc 3 | Msc 4), Valparaíso, Chile, Fall 2017 - Spring 2018.
The MSc3/MSc4 Graduation Studio “Positions in Practice” of the Department of Architecture TU Delft (fall, 2017) focused on the urban and architectural context of Valparaíso, as a laboratory for the definition of disciplinary positions and the performance of these positions in practice.

Positions in Practice Graduation Studio (MSc 3 | MSc 4), Bogotá, Colombia, Fall 2015 - Spring 2016

Re-founded in 1952 by a group of architects, artists and poets; the School of Valparaíso represents one of the most long-lasting and original experimental artistic experiences in the Latin American context. The article comments on a fundamental aspect of the School approach: the lived structure of Acts that organizes and gives shape to its creative experience and learning ambit—a continuous rhythm of Acts, structuring the spheres of life, work and study. The authors propose that one of the particular dimensions constructed by this practice is to summon and situate the work at the centre of the School quests. The article develops the idea that it is exactly through the work that the School seems to fulfil its role, transforming ourselves into the crafts.