‘Water Blew Up Everything’: from Critical Urbanisms to Situated Planetary Care

One-day seminar organised in the context of the research project ‘“Water Blew Up Everything”: An Urban History of Climate Disasters in Buenos Aires Informal Settlements’ (British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants 2024-2026). The event will be accompanied by an exhibition of visual materials stemming from the project ahead of its display in Buenos Aires in March/April 2026.

The seminar is open to colleagues of The University of Sheffield. 

9.45-10am: Coffee and arrivals

10-10.45am: Presentation of the project

Presenters:   

• Adriana Massidda         (UoS, Architecture and Landscape)

• Eva Camelli                      (CONICET/Universidad Nacional General Sarmiento)

• Carla Fainstein               (CONICET/Universidad de San Martín)

• Valeria Snitcofsky         (CONICET/Universidad de Buenos Aires)

10.45-12.15pm: First roundtable - Focus: urban water

Prompt questions: how do we understand water in a context of global disaster(s) from a design perspective? What is its relation to urban poverty / low-income spaces / coloniality? 

Respondents:   

• Tanzil Shafique  (UoS, Architecture and Landscape)

• Youcao Ren  (UoS, Architecture and Landscape)

• Liz Sharp  (UoS, Urban Institute/Sheffield Water Centre)

Chair: Camilla Allen

12.15-1.00pm: Lunch and introductions

1.00-2.30pm: Second roundtable - Focus: readings from feminist spatial theory 

Prompt question: how can we read this case through a lens of situated planetary care? 

Respondents: 

• Hannah le Roux  (UoS, Architecture and Landscape)

• Emma Cheatle  (UoS, Architecture and Landscape)

• Isabelle Doucet  (UoS, Architecture and Landscape)

Chair: Molly Avery (UoS, History)

 2.30 - 2.45pm Coffee break 

2.45-4.15pm: Third roundtable - Focus: spatial inequalities

Prompt questions: how do urban floods relate to unequal distributions of urban infrastructure and land? whose interests are at stake in relocation initiatives? and what do these climate/human events tell us in terms of housing, environmental and urban (in)justices? 

Respondents:  

• Beatrice de Carli (UoS, Architecture and Landscape)

• Linda Westman  (UoS, Urban Institute/ICOSS)

• Miguel Kanai  (UoS, School of Geography and Planning) 

• Yu-Tung Wu  (UoS, School of Geography and Planning)

• Chair: Luis Hernán (UoS, Architecture and Landscape)

4.15-5pm: An informal and collective walk through the exhibition, and wrapping up the day