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Cartography of Housing Studies

Cartography of Housing Studies is a tool designed to help the Department of Architecture at Universidad de los Andes to create a new master program in the field of housing.

We conducted research to create a map that define thematic areas addressed by national and international master’s programs of housing, and developed a deck of cards that rate how relevant and meaningful these approaches are from the perspectives of future students and experts in the field.

I worked as a research assistant for the professor Juan Manuel González. Our role, with another research assistant, was to analyze existing master’s programs, conduct user research, and develop the map and deck.

Director  

Juan Manuel González

Research Assistants  

Valentina Sierra 

Camilo Rodríguez

Melissa Ferro

Daniel Rojas

Client 

Universidad de los Andes

Date 

Aug. - Oct. 2019

Map

HOUSING-Studies-Cartography.jpg

The map consists of a series of concepts. Each concept stands for an abstract description that encompasses comparable topics addressed by the master’s programs under study.

The location of the concepts in the map was determined by whether they had a focus on production or culture (vertical axis), and if they had a top-down or bottom-up approach (horizontal axis).

Additionally, the concepts were divided into three categories:

Foundations

Practices

Practices

Conceptual grounds

Procedures of participation

Techniques of intervention

Deck of Cards

For each concept, there was an explanatory card with the definition of the concept, a short narrative that illustrates it, related keywords found in the analyzed master’s curriculums, and the level of importance of the concept according to the results of the research process.

Extrinsic-Approach-01.jpg
Extrinsic-Approach-02.jpg
Introspective-approach-01.jpg
Introspective-Approach-02.jpg
Gestión-Tangible-01-01.jpg
Gestión-Tangible-02-01.jpg
Gestión-Intangible-01-01.jpg
Gestión-Intangible-02-01.jpg
Mercado-Eficiente-01-01.jpg
Mercado-Eficiente-02-01.jpg
Mercado-Cuestionable-01-01.jpg
Mercado-Cuestionable-02-01.jpg
Creación-Práctica-01-01.jpg
Creación-Práctica-02-01.jpg
Creación-Teórica-01-01.jpg
Creación-Teórica-02-01.jpg
Modelos-Globales-01-01.jpg
Modelos-Globales-02-01.jpg
Modelos-Locales-01-01.jpg
Modelos-Locales-02-01.jpg
Capitales-Económicos-01-01.jpg
Capitales-Económicos-02-01.jpg
Capitales-Intelectuales-01-01.jpg
Capitales-Intelectuales-02-01.jpg

The images and narratives were created based on the book House without Hands by John Wood, Friedrich Wilhelm, Edward Smith and George Pearson

Process

Life Stories

We conducted interviews with young architects, young professionals from disciplines related to housing, and experts to understand their perspectives about this subject in Colombia.

To analyze the stories collected from the interviews, we used a version of the methodology Narrative Conversations. This allowed us to understand intrinsic factors such as lessons, motives and wishes, and extrinsic factors like environments, surroundings, and people that had an effect in participants’ life stories and, especially, in their relationships with housing. From this analysis, we assigned five concepts from the maps to each participant that were critical in her or his personal and professional trajectories.

Housing-Life-Story-01-01.jpg
Housing-Life-Story-02-01.jpg

Workshop

We carried a group workshop with the interviewees. They participated in an activity to explore all the concepts that were previously defined and ranked the ones they considered more relevant and meaningful for the development of a future master’s program.

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