Dall'Orto / Rural Habitat at 0° Latitude

Rural Habitat at 0° Latitude The Architectural Project as a Tool for a Critical Investigation on Living

Author: Valentina Dall'Orto, Politecnico di Milano

Supervisor: Andrea Gritti, Professor Dr., Associated Professor DAStU, Politecnico di Milano; Antonio di Campli, Politecnico di Torino; Franco Tagliabue, Politecnico di Milano

Research stage: initial doctoral stage

Category: Extended abstract

Abstract

The research is focused on individuating a proper representation code, useful for the interpretation of the blurred condition of contemporary rurality, through the analysis of the house. The dwelling has been selected as it embodies the material expression of changes of spatial practices occurring in the Global South. Its architecture often manifests a process of cultural hybridization, resulting in anonymous spatial paradigms in perpetual transition, rather than a strong relation with the territory.

The investigation will take place in the Andean region of Loja, in the southern Ecuador, a frontier land crossed by several environmental and socio-economic crucial issues, deriving in the generation of original praxis in the production of domestic space.

Architecture in envisioned as an important agent of transformation in re-shaping the future of rural environment, for this reason it’s relevant to speculate on the project tools to build up a critical representation of contemporary rurality.

Keywords: Rural, House, Global