Dr
Adriana Laura
Massidda
School of Architecture and Landscape
Lecturer in Architectural Humanities
a.l.massidda@sheffield.ac.uk
Arts Tower
Full contact details
Dr Adriana Laura Massidda
Arts Tower
School of Architecture and Landscape
Arts Tower
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
- Profile
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I am currently working in two main research areas. First, for twelve years I have been studying and reconstructing the history of Buenos Aires shantytowns. Second, in my most recent research, I have begun to investigate and expand on the environmental aspects of the processes of urban change I have found when studying precarious settlements, linking them to architectural design. In particular, I am piloting research-by-design techniques and co-design in low-income housing contexts in the UK, more specifically in the context of two social housing complexes built on top of former sewage farms in London and Leicester. I am also preparing a new project to pursue similar work in Buenos Aires, thus combining both elements of my expertise.
Recent publication:
Villas en Dictadura. Córdoba, Rosario y Buenos Aires. Co-edited with Valeria Snitcofsky and Eva Camelli. Buenos Aires: Café de las Ciudades, 2021. Declared asset of cultural significance (Bien de Interés para la Comunicación Social) by the Buenos Aires Legislature in November 2023.
- Research interests
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Shantytown history, urban informality, urban history, social housing, (water and sewage) infrastructure, critical environmentalisms, waste, flooding, co-design, urban rivers, landscape design, phytoremediation.
- Publications
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Edited books
- Villas en Dictadura. Córdoba, Rosario y Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires: Café de las Ciudades. View this article in WRRO
- Creative Spaces: Urban Culture and Marginality in Latin America. London: University of London Press / Institute of Latin American Studies. View this article in WRRO
Journal articles
- Reviews of Books. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 102(10), 1147-1160.
- The Slum and the City: Culture and Dissidence in the Villas Miseria of Buenos Aires. BULLETIN OF HISPANIC STUDIES, 102(10).
- El mapa invertido [The inverted map]. AREA - Agenda de Reflexión en Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo, 31(1). View this article in WRRO
- Reocupar, reconstruir, “refundar”: el repoblamiento de las villas del sur de Buenos Aires (1981-1985) [Reoccupying, rebuilding, "re-founding": the repopulation of the villas of south Buenos Aires (1981-1985). Vivienda y Ciudad, 10, 72-93. View this article in WRRO
- Slums, villas miseria and barriadas: why terms matter. Journal of Urban History, 49(3), 552-570. View this article in WRRO
- “Villas miseria” en Buenos Aires hacia mediados del siglo XX: tensiones políticas y primeras conceptualizaciones estatales. EURE (Santiago) - Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbano Regionales, 49(147), 1-21.
- Shantytowns and social engineering in 1950s Argentina. RIBAJ: The RIBA Journal. View this article in WRRO
- Shantytowns, housing and state order: the Plan de Emergencia in 1950s Argentina. Planning Perspectives, 36(2), 215-236.
- La representación urbanística de los espacios informales. Las villas miseria de Buenos Aires (1947-1965). Bitácora Urbano Territorial, 30(1), 115-126.
- Design exchanges in mid-twentieth century Buenos Aires: the programme Parque Almirante Brown and its process of creative appropriation. Journal of Design History, 32(1), 35-51.
- Cómo nombrar a la informalidad urbana: una revisión de las definiciones en uso, sus implicaciones analíticas y su alcance. Quid 16, 10. View this article in WRRO
- Lo político en lo urbano. Pobreza urbana en el pasado reciente. Villa Jardín, 1958-1967. Revista Encuentros Uruguayos, XI(1), 59-72. View this article in WRRO
- Conflicting conceptions of domestic space: Shantytowns and state housing in contemporary Argentine cinema. Journal of Romance Studies, 18(2), 159-179. View this article in WRRO
- Utopian visions for Buenos Aires shantytowns: collective imaginaries of housing rights, upgrading and eviction (1956-2013). Bulletin of Latin American Research, 37(2), 144-159.
- Grassroots agency: participation and conflict in Buenos Aires shantytowns seen through the Pilot Plan for Villa 7 (1971–1975). Architecture_MPS.
- Participación en la construcción popular del hábitat. Una revisión del Plan Piloto para Villa 7 en Buenos Aires [Participation in the popular construction of the habitat. A review of the Pilot Plan for Villa 7 in Buenos Aires]. Carta Económica Regional, 29(120). View this article in WRRO
- Negociaciones, permanencia y construcción cotidiana en villas: villas la lonja, cildáñez y castañares, Buenos Aires, 1958-1967. URBANA: Revista Eletrônica do Centro Interdisciplinar de Estudos sobre a Cidade, 9(1), 15-15.
- Gardening as care: rewriting a research paper in the first person. field, 10(1).
Book chapters
- Entre invisibilidades y dirigencias: mujeres en villas de Buenos Aires (1958-1967) In Cravino MC (Ed.), Historia y memoria de villas y favelas (pp. 37-74). Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento View this article in WRRO
- The spatiality of desire in Martín Oesterheld’s La multitud (2012) and Luis Ortega’s Dromómanos (2012) In Geraghty NHD & Massidda AL (Ed.), Creative Spaces: Urban Culture and Marginality in Latin America (pp. 201-240). University of London Press, Institute of Latin American Studies View this article in WRRO
Book reviews
- Javier Auyero and Katherine Sobering, The Ambivalent State: Police–Criminal Collusion at the Urban Margins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 240, $29.95, pb.. Journal of Latin American Studies, 54(3), 553-555. View this article in WRRO
Dictionary or encyclopaedia entries
- Ñiquiñaque/extraÑo. In Wastiary: A Bestiary of Waste UCL Press. View this article in WRRO
Other
- El agua arrasó todo: la inundación de 1967 en Buenos Aires.
- Art and the toxic politics of waste: Latin America. a roundtable discussion with filmmakers and researchers at University College London. A Contracorriente: una revista de estudios latinoamericanos, 20(1), 317-335. View this article in WRRO
- Film and the toxic politics of waste: a roundtable. e-flux Journal(127). View this article in WRRO
- Villas en Dictadura. Córdoba, Rosario y Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires: Café de las Ciudades. View this article in WRRO
- Teaching interests
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- Architectural humanities
- Architectural and landscape design
- Research/doctoral supervision