Architectural Design Strategies and Tactics as Driver of Critical Awareness: A Research by Design Application for Vulnerable Communities in Ciudad Juárez

This paper is the outcome of a joint-research-project initiative settled between the Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua (Mexico) and the University of Pavia (Italy) within the international research framework under the title Vulnerable Socio-Ecotones research project. The study focuses on the region along the US-Mexico central border, where socioenvironmental issues are extremely complicated and getting worse due to the current political, health, and environmental crises. The research has been implement using onsite participant observation, a detailed literature review on architecture and urban studies of Juárez's urban. The outcome of the study is a series of design reports realized through the architect's means of expression (plans, drawings, perspectives, collages, etc.) revealing possibilities of architecture against the actual conformity of design practices imposed by the actual patterns of urban space development. Our design proposals go beyond both theoretical research and pedagogical research creating a new understanding and hope that to change the vulnerable situation is possible through an active rejection of ongoing and imposed urban processes.