THE STORY:
 

“Intelli-femina-gens” from the “Global-South-America” project and film is derived from the 4x4=16 South American Women in Architecture series, which features four films:

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4x4=16 Argentina: “Arquitectas al Sur”

4x4=16 Peru: “Territorios Diversos”

4x4=16 Chile: “Entre Montañas y Mar”

4x4=16 Brazil: “Pertenencia & Pertinencia”

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These 4x4=16 films feature (16) South American women architects, (4) each from Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Brazil, respectively. The film interconnects the paths of these women architects practicing in four unique countries with diverse geographic, cultural, and social contexts.  These architects include designers, practitioners, educators, government policy makers, and activists bringing an inclusive, diverse dialogue from the “Global South America”.

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The project and film conversations range from examples of innovative practices, which utilize low-tech ancestral design techniques to solve regional challenges, to governmental decision-making strategies for executing collective public policies focused on infrastructure and planning of the urban-rural. In short, the film examines how these architects have integrated natural, artificial, and collective “intelligens” into their work.

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The juxtaposition of the high-tech visual presentation with the tactile, low-tech, hand-generated models and graphics echoes the design process of our architects: the co-evolution of sophisticated, perfect design and raw, imperfect materiality.

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Their work highlights the creative knowledge of indigenous construction methods, harmoniously integrating with their context and place.  The resulting products are intricate, sustainable designs guiding us from an “ego-centric” towards an “eco-centric” world*.

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Through notions of rustic modularity and prefabrication based on reclaiming native materials, these projects achieve, above all, an uplifting and primary approach to the endless desire to connect with the materiality of nature.

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* Architect Cazú Zegers