Dr Adriana Laura Massidda
School of Architecture and Landscape
Lecturer in Architectural Humanities
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a.l.massidda@sheffield.ac.uk
Arts Tower
Full contact details
Dr Adriana Laura Massidda
School of Architecture and Landscape
Arts Tower
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
School of Architecture and Landscape
Arts Tower
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
- Profile
-
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
- Creative Spaces: Urban Culture and Marginality in Latin America. Institute of Latin American Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
Journal articles
- “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.
- Slums, villas miseria and barriadas: why terms matter. Journal of Urban History.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Conflicting conceptions of domestic space: Shantytowns and state housing in contemporary Argentine cinema. Journal of Romance Studies, 18(2), 159-179.
- 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.
Chapters
Dictionary/encyclopaedia entries
- Teaching interests
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- Architectural humanities
- Architectural and landscape design
- Research/doctoral supervision