Many of you have asked me to keep you posted on my Fulbright year in Ecuador. In addition to my indubitable posts on Instagram and Facebook, I will do my best to keep this blog up-to-date so you can follow along and send me feedback!

Let’s start with how I got here…

During my studies at UT I pursued every opportunity I could to do research. Going beyond the typical research of studio projects I wanted to explore issues in a broader context and with a focus on South America.

My independent research, in pursuit of the Latin American Architecture Certificate, began with visiting and collecting data on social housing projects in Ecuador, Peru and Chile in the summer of 2014. I titled this research Architecture-after-Architect’s: changes in social housing over time. My goal was to understand how homeowners changed their dwellings throughout the years and to track ownership. What changes did they make? How were these changes the same/ different from those of their neighbors? What was the purpose of their changes? For more on this research feel free to check out my presentation here.

This initial research helped me understand that it was issues of agency* that I was deeply interested in. Under the guidance of Dr. Fernando Lara, I structured my MDS research project around designing to support the agency of women in public spaces. Simultaneously, I was taking a research design class lead by Dr. Steven Moore and Dr. Kristine Stiphany where I learned about designing the structure and execution of a research project. Taking these classes in my final semester at UT was ultimately the graduate school opportunity for which I am most grateful because it lead me to developing my research ideas and ultimately my Fulbright proposal.

*Agency is the capacity to make and implement decisions 

Ok Heather, but what are you going to be researching in Ecuador?!

My research is titled Women’s Agency in the Built Environment of Rural Ecuador or in other words feminism and architecture. The goal is to work with women and men on flower/rose farms and their surrounding communities to understand how they construct and use their built environment. This information will be used to make sense of how both the process of creating places and the resulting spaces do or do not empower women and combat issues of gender inequity.

My research methodology focuses on the use of participatory design to gather information through mapping, drawing, and other participatory methods. Participatory research and design aims to involve stakeholders in the process of planning and design to identify their issues and find the solutions that work best for them.

But how is this architecture? Don’t architects design places for people? What about that architecture license you got?

While at UT I had the honor of taking several classes with Dr. Sarah Lopez. She introduced me to cultural landscapes* as a way to study the built environment and this transformed the way I envisioned my career. No longer do I feel that designing is the only approach to architecture. I also believe that understanding how people create and use their own space is an essential component of our profession. This is bottom up architecture – by the people and not necessarily with the involvement of professionals.

*A cultural landscape, as defined by the World Heritage Committee, is the “cultural properties [that] represent the combined works of nature and of man.”

I want to use what I learn to guide or help facilitate the development of projects and processes. I want to share my license with others to help them get their dreams built. I simply see myself as the translator of other’s ideas into a form that allows them to become reality.

And last, but most importantly…

I would not have made it here without the encouragement and support of my friends and family. You helped me explore ideas, questioned me at the right times and provided the encouragement I needed to pursue a lofty goal. THANK YOU and come visit!