Designing Shared Worlds: Reflections on a Decolonial Teaching Approach in Architectural Projects

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Published: Sep 12, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.27.Article.5
Keywords:
escuela de Arquitectura, decolonialidad, proyectos de arquitectura, pensamiento afro-indígena, codiseño School of Architecture, decoloniality, architectural design, Afro-Indigenous thought, co-design

Main Article Content

María Ayara Mendo-Pérez
Department of Graphic Expression, Composition, and Projects, Universidad de Alicante
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7074-7343

Abstract

This article examines pedagogical transformations in the author’s university teaching practice through an engagement with Brazilian Afro-Indigenous thought and its relationship to decolonial perspectives in design. The article links an encounter with a group of Yawanawá women in the Brazilian Amazon to personal and pedagogical bifurcations that traverse the field of architecture. It analyzes the methodological strategies applied while supervising the Final Degree Projects presented at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), which have fostered a historiographic questioning movement, both in terms of references and methodological practices. It concludes that these pedagogical experiences bring together different logics, including the students’ interest in exploring and experimenting with non-canonical ways of thinking about and practicing architecture in collaboration with situated communities and territories.

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How to Cite
Mendo-Pérez, M. A. (2025). Designing Shared Worlds: Reflections on a Decolonial Teaching Approach in Architectural Projects. Diseña, (27), Article.5. https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.27.Article.5
Issue
No. 27 (2025): Affirmation? How to Learn to Live with ‘The Others’ Through Design (2nd Issue)
Section
Original Articles (part 1)
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Author Biography

María Ayara Mendo-Pérez, Department of Graphic Expression, Composition, and Projects, Universidad de Alicante

Assistant Professor in the Department of Graphic Expression, Composition, and Projects at the University of Alicante. She holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where she also obtained a Master’s degree in Urban Planning. Her research focuses on establishing a dialogue with Amerindian legacies and other silenced ancestral knowledge, aiming at affirming this knowledge and generating reparations in architecture and design. Her latest publications include: ‘Prácticas de diseño en la Tierra Indígena Río Gregorio en la Floresta Amazónica brasileña’ (AUS, Issue 35); ‘¿Devorar para reparar? Una intervención Yanomami en la arquitectura modernista del Congreso Nacional de Brasilia’ (co-authored with P. Martins and C. Bevilaqua; Rita, Issue 20); and ‘Rethinking the Museum From a Decolonial Perspective: The Role of Architecture in Amerindian Art Exhibitions’ (with E. Gisbert; Arte, Individuo y Sociedad, Vol. 37, Issue 3).

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