Residencias Remotas is an initiative created by the Architecture program of the Campus Creativo in conjunction with the Community Engagement department of the Universidad Andrés Bello. This interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary project aims to open up a space for reflection on contemporary and pressing issues.
"The development of an initiative like Residencia Remota at the School of Architecture of the Universidad Andrés Bello aims to become a program that allows us as a community to connect with professionals, topics, and approaches that are relevant to the discipline and enable us to investigate contemporary emergencies. In this sense, it promotes disciplinary cultural production from within academia, ensuring that the university continues to serve as a space that fosters reflection through various initiatives like this one," comments Juan Paulo Alarcón, director of the School of Architecture at the Universidad Andrés Bello.
The open call drew participation from 28 teams representing 10 countries: Argentina, Germany, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Spain, the United States, Mexico, and Venezuela. The submitted proposals addressed a wide range of themes, examining political, social, cultural, and economic issues through diverse perspectives on the water crisis, extractivism, space travel, sexual dissidence, Indigenous rights, contemporary domesticity, and the food crisis, among others. These were evaluated by an international jury comprising Abel Perles (Productora DF and LIGA), Carla Juaçaba (Carla Juaçaba Studio), Sebastián Salfate (Instituto Tele-Arte), María Alejandra Linares (research and curatorial practices), María José Marcos (MagicArch), Ángela Carvajal (Anagramma Arquitectos), and Juan Paulo Alarcón (Surco Arquitectos).
The jury selected four proposals that stood out for the breadth of their questions, their proactive nature, and their relevance. Two third-place positions were awarded: to S.K.I.A Studio (Germany/Chile) with the question: How do you strip a building of its shadow?, and to Tatiana Poggi alongside Joaquín García Vicente (Spain), who proposed: Can we imagine a Mapuche multispeciesism to replace colonial capitalism?. Second place went to Joel Kerner (USA) with the question: When taken out of scale and context, what might patterns of land use around the world suggest about new architectural and urban speculations?, and first place was awarded to the Spanish firm GRANDEZA Studio, composed of Amaia Sanchez-Velasco, Jorge Valiente Oriol, and Gonzalo Valiente Oriol, who posed the following: Why want to be an Earthling on Mars if you can be a Martian on Earth? This proposal suggests “...a multiscalar drift through the tentacular geographies connecting the banal interior of the sports car (the Tesla Roadster convertible launched into space by Elon Musk in 2018) with the landscapes of the Lithium Triangle, the surface of Mars, and beyond.”
Founded in Madrid in 2011, the GRANDEZA collective operates at the intersection of education, academic research, and creative practice. Their work focuses on studying late-capitalist spaces and narratives to test—through exercises in political imagination—architecture's capacity to respond to environmental, social, and political challenges. GRANDEZA's architectural speculations project onto territories conceived as “allegorical laboratories of the future,” opening up the possibility of imagining forms of dissent against extractivist hegemony and new horizons toward post-capitalist emancipation. The collective's work has been exhibited and published in various galleries and schools, such as the Bauhaus Dessau in 2014, as well as in several architecture biennials, including the XX Chile Architecture and Urbanism Biennial in 2017.
The winning studio, alongside students from the School of Architecture at the Universidad Andrés Bello's Campus Creativo, will work on research that will culminate in an intervention designed to explore various formats and media of representation. This installation will be displayed in October at the Rocamar Gallery, located on the first floor of the Campus Creativo in Viña del Mar.
"In this regard, the Residencias Remotas initiated by UNAB open up a generous and exciting window for us to develop the project in a place whose political dynamics directly intersect with the “tentacular geographies” that connect this image to Earth. Therefore, this stratospheric drift takes on a particularly relevant meaning both for us and for the audiences visiting the exhibition in October. Additionally, it is highly rewarding to collaborate with UNAB university students, who will join both the research process and the exhibition setup, giving them the opportunity to explore, from the inside, alternative ways of practicing architecture that are also committed to transforming living conditions through unconventional methodologies," comments GRANDEZA Studio.
Results of the Residencias Remotas international open call:
Organizer: School of Architecture Campus Creativo, Universidad Andrés Bello.
Jury: Abel Perles (Productora DF and LIGA), Carla Juaçaba (Carla Juaçaba Studio), Sebastián Salfate (Instituto Tele-Arte), María Alejandra Linares (research and curatorial practices), María José Marcos (MagicArch), Ángela Carvajal (Anagramma Arquitectos), Juan Paulo Alarcón (Surco Arquitectos).
Coordination and Organization: Sebastián López (Anagramma Arquitectos)
Sponsor: School of Architecture Campus Creativo, Universidad Andrés Bello, and Community Engagement.
Winner:
Awards:
Finalists: Alejandro Alcázar, Gabriel Vergara + Sebastián Villagrán, Lia Yolanda + Mhur, Lucía Martín López, Ludmila Drago, PALMA, Sauermartins, Sebastián Marchant, Sergio Cortés.
Participants: AGA Studio, Álvaro Parraguéz + Beatriz Harriet, Carla Haimovich, Carlos Pastor, Cecilia Pellegrini, ENTOMOMANIAC (María Mas Menguel + Alejandro Quinto), Felipe Miño, Grupo Cardona, Leticia Paschetta, Mario Carpo, Maximilian Nowotka, Olga Sánchez, Pablo Rojas, Saúl Robles, Tamara Vega.
This article was written by Victoria Riquelme. The translation is powered by AI.
