Astragalo. Culture of Architecture and the City: Announcements

Scimago awards Astragalo a Q2 rating for 2024

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 19:51:13 +0000

The SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicators for journals, calculated on the Scopus database, have just been updated: https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php.

Astragalo has improved its ranking in 2024 from Q4 to Q2.

https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=21101171884&tip=sid&clean=0

It is an important milestone for us, as editors of the journal, but it is certainly a recognition of all those who have participated in 2024 as authors or reviewers. To them, our thanks.

2024 Architecture Q3, Geography Q4, Planning and Development Q2, History Q2, Philosophy Q2, Urban Studies Q3, Visual Arts and Performing Arts Q2

Journal Astragalo announces two new calls for papers: A39 (EXTRA) (2025) DOUBLE COLLAPSE: ECOSYSTEMIC AND HUMANISTIC and A40 (2025) DRAWING THE FRONTIERS | EXPLORING THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN ARCHITECTURAL AND PRACTICAL TRAINING.

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 09:29:49 +0000

A39 (EXTRA) (2025) DOUBLE COLLAPSE: ECOSYSTEMIC AND HUMANIST.

Guest Editors:

Manoel Rodrigues Alves, Instituto de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil

Julio Arroyo, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina

submissions until May 30^th 2025

peer review until July 30^th 2025

publication October 2025

For the contemporaries of the first 25 years of the 21st century, contemporaneity, understood as a historical condition and cultural pattern, reformulates problems and introduces new subjects of study, conditioning the revision of apparently consolidated procedures and theoretical frameworks. The awareness of living in new eras, such as those of the anthropocene and the digital, opens up hypotheses of transition towards a post-human world in which the city and the territory, public space and social practices, architecture and the aesthetics of everyday life are confronted as the end of a historical cycle, giving rise to a different state. José Luis Pardo (2011) argues that due to the civilisational change we are undergoing; we are in a permanent transition of paradigms: is this the case in the Global South?

The direction taken by the development of technology since modernity affects different disciplinary fields, such as Architecture and Urbanism, which have become a kind of absolute knowledge about the ways of inhabiting the Earth, considered as an available resource to be instrumentalised with the consequent disappearance of biomes and the degradation of landscapes. Urban territories, cities, have been transformed into devices with a high environmental impact. To be a contemporary of these changes means paying attention to concepts such as the Anthropocene, Capitalocene or Chthulucene which, due to their breadth, express the multi-causality of the processes that affect the planet as a whole, opening up the possibility of developing a new ethic in the relationship between humanity and nature.

Likewise, the entrenchment of the digital era promotes informational logic in all orders of existence, facilitates compulsive connectivity between monadic individuals (Sadin, 2020) and expands the application of artificial intelligence, giving rise to crisis phenomena that transcend national boundaries and challenge the power of states. Realities emerge in which subjects develop, by epochal imperative, new sensibilities and cognitive capacities that alter the notion of space and time. The urban locus as a factor of stability in space and duration in time, yields to the volatility and instantaneity of the digital, modifying collective practices in urban public space.

Cities (in the Global South), characterised by their multiple temporalities and spatialities, which in themselves can be explained by their historical complexity, are confronted with the need to process new externalities that are specific to their singularities and to political, economic and cultural globalisation. Thus, the question of our times, of the anthropocene and the digital, constitutes an epiphenomenon that introduces new parameters for thinking the city as a palimpsest of meanings, material elements and social practices.

Are these worlds in ruins, human and non-human worlds produced from a logic of transience and instantaneity, of ephemeral times and amnesic spaces (A. F. Carlos), of forgetfulness and substitution? In this new era, the separation between Nature and Culture, as well as between subject and society, is unsustainable and requires new perspectives and approaches to confront the dualisms, colonialism and hegemony of the Western world.

Starting from the fact that today's city is an expression of the power of globalised capitalism, and that there is a shift from the city-work-politics triad to the city-management-business triad, enhanced by the disruptive presence of technology, we pose the following questions:

- What are the possibilities and limitations of the South in the face of the complexity of contemporary trends that imply a significant civilisational transformation?

- Do these trends constitute new threats or new opportunities for societies marked by acute inequalities?

- To what extent does the Global South propose a situated epistemology, adequate to face the challenges of the contemporary moment?

- What emerges as a development of this epistemology in relation to the values, elements and procedures of design disciplines such as Architecture and Urbanism?

We call for alternative and critical thinking about the material and symbolic processes of our cities and territories through the presentation of cases, reflections or records that give an account of how these tendencies are processed in the Global South, in a time that is experienced as the cause and consequence of a hypothetical double apocalypse: that of environmental and human collapse.

PARDO, José Luis. Disculpen las molestias, estamos transitando hacia un nuevo paradigma. En Arena, L. y Fogué, U. Planos de (inter)sección. Materiales para un diálogo entre filosofía y arquitectura. Lampreave, 2011.

SADIN, Eric. La Inteligencia artificial o el desafío del siglo. Anatomía de un antihumanismo radical. Buenos Aires, Caja Negra, 2020.

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A40 (2025) BLURRING THE LINES | EXPLORING THE JUNCTIONS BETWEEN ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

Guest editors:

Victoria Farrow Architect. Leicester School of Architecture, De Monfort University

Alona Martínez Pérez. Architect. Leicester School of Architecture, De Monfort University

submissions until May 30^th 2025

peer review until July 20^th 2025

publication September 2025

^ The real world.

^ Practice ready.

^ Prepared for office.

These are all common phrases used within architectural education as we describe preparing graduates for completing their degree and also when in conversation with practitioners about industry expectations. It is of course important that graduates exit from higher education ready to work and that they have the confidence to engage with tasks in the office. Whilst not the sole aim of architectural education, the prime objective should ideally rest with employability, but what other components are important when educating architects of the future?

When discussing university with those educating groups ages 16-18, a common topic is often whether a student is ready for university. Has their previous education equipped them sufficiently to take that next step into higher education? What preparation has happened in order to explore this junction and has adequate support been given in order to create a successful trajectory? This topic of readiness is also a common theme amongst undergraduate educators as we unpack whether a student’s educational background has equipped them to feel sufficiently prepared for architectural education. For decades, it has also been common place to interrogate the junctions that happen between educational levels at architecture school. In doing so, pedagogical practice and understanding has evolved in order to create teaching methods and projects that have level appropriateness both for the “now” when in receipt of the incoming students but also for the future. Through this element of forward planning, educators aim to ensure that students within architectural education and the related design fields will enter professional practice with appropriate knowledge and a set of tools in order to perform successfully.

One question that perhaps is less often asked would be, are practices and industry “ready” for our students and what reflections are happening within industry in terms of mentoring that respond to the ever changing world and in turn, architectural training?

This particular junction where higher education meets professional practice has remained one of debate for many decades. With the profession constantly evolving and changing to accommodate our shifting society and climate, one might question if it is even possible to train graduates to be “ready” for the real world? On the same thread, architectural education continues to face pressures to meet the needs of our incoming students, whom, year on year, are also shifting in terms of their needs, aspirations and skills. Students today are joining architectural education adept and highly capable in technologies and softwares that students a decade ago were not. They are also much more aware of the challenges presented by the climate crisis; grappling with the financial crisis that is biting and familiar with a need for broader awareness of equality, diversity and inclusivity. As such, it is needed that architectural education adapts and accommodates these new types of students in order to create thoughtful new curriculums that address items such as inclusivity; AI, BIM and, new materials (to mention a few) as well as finding new pedagogical methods to deliver content. As architectural education is adjusts the front end of an architects training, how are practices reacting to our changing graduates? What conversations are happening within the profession and within architectural education about this junction post graduation and how is this being addressed?

On both sides of this critical junction, within architectural education and the profession, change has been forced as a result of the pandemic and the climate crisis. Similarly, architectural news has placed a spotlight on mistreatment, bullying, low pay, misogyny and worse happening within. The incoming changes from ARB to undergraduate education also present new challenges that must be addressed. This abstract therefore poses the question of what architectural education for future architects should look like and how the junction between the two should be treated as we progress. How do we prepare for an unknown future?

This abstract invites academics, researchers and students to give examples of projects and pedagogies being used to prepare students for the profession and to discuss how our work within architectural education is equipping students with the skills and knowledge needed for office. The abstract also invites papers from practitioners, who may or may not be staggering the boundary line between education and practice, which discuss how industry is evolving to prepare to receive new graduates and how the profession is working to accommodate the changes happening within architectural education.

Papers responding to this abstract should take their position first on what is meant by “practice ready” and the “real world?”. It will also be necessary to declare a position as an educator, a practitioner or both.

Extension of deadlines A36 and A37

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 09:39:47 +0000

+info: https://revistascientificas.us.es/index.php/astragalo/calls

Call for Papers Issue A37 Emancipatory Housing

Thu, 16 May 2024 07:13:25 +0000

Guest Editor: Dr. Jorge Minguet Medina (Escuela de Arquitectura, Universidad de Málaga)

The dwelling of the average citizen - not the palace or the convent - was not considered Architecture until the latter, subjected to the labour pressures of decommunalisation and the Industrial Revolution, became a mass of urban and overcrowded population. It was fear of this mass - as much or more than mercy for it - that drove the development of collective housing as an architectural discipline which, consequently, incorporates, from its very birth, a normalising aspiration conducive to the social conformity of its inhabitants. "If the working man has his own house, I have no fear of revolution", said Lord Shaftesbury, one of the first and most important philanthropists dedicated to the promotion and study of social housing.

Today, a revolution is not to be expected. Perhaps because of this, housing conditions and access to them are escalating to levels of hardship and misery unthinkable a few decades ago, without there being a reaction to match the problem on the part of public administrations on any scale. Decades of deregulation and insistence on individualism and the laws of the market have turned the housing market not only into one of the deregulated ones, but also into one of the preferred markets for international speculation, which is increasingly alien to the fact of inhabitation. The globalised influences that confront the forced migration of people with the free flow of financial capital and digital nomads, have come to incorporate previously inconceivable difficulties, which refer to scales far removed from the local and regional. The public administrations responsible for housing, which operate at these smaller scales, are either helpless in the face of these problems or, if they have a neoliberal ideology, they deliberately reinforce them. Thus, the housing market, transferred from local to global scale, gradually ceases to be accessible to the average citizen and inhabitant, not only as an owner, but even as a tenant.

However, Human Rights, numerous National Constitutions, and other often overlooked declarations of rights at all levels continue to recognize the Right to Housing as fundamental. This right is essential for the personal and social development of the individual, a cornerstone for both democracy and capitalism - though the latter, when taken to extremes, tends to contradict it. We need to think of housing as an element capable of making us gain autonomy and of consolidating our identity and sense of belonging, as well as the most basic relationships in our immediate social environment: it provides us with a place in the world. The democratisation of society is not possible without solving the most pressing housing problems. Housing is emancipatory, and this capacity can be developed at all scales: from the detailed design of housing, to policies at all scales, including international ones, for its regulation, promotion, control, etc.

Papers are invited to reflect on these issues from any of these perspectives or scales: from the historical narrative of the related issues, globally or locally; to proposals for measures, policies, and systems of design and construction, as well as of tenure and management, aimed at understanding and promoting this emancipatory dimension of housing. This call expressly seeks to embrace the multidimensionality of the problem, and hopes to create links between very diverse but somehow convergent approaches to the broad idea being pursued.

Call for submissions: launch on 16 May 2024.

Deadline for submission of articles: 14 October 2024.

Communication to authors: 14 December 2024.

Antonio Fernández Alba has passed away, Founder of the journal Astrágalo

Wed, 08 May 2024 10:58:07 +0000

Update of the guidelines for authors to the Chicago 17 standard.

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 19:26:00 +0000

Launch of A36 Bogotá Pluriversal issue

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 18:14:08 +0000

The approach of this call is based on two of those that preceded us. On the one hand, the pluriversal politics and the ontological re-equipment of cities by Arturo Escobar in "Designing for a real world" (A30 in 2022) and, on the other, the dis-integration of "Divided cities" by Alona Fernández with Introduction to the number by Roberto Fernández (A29 in 2021). In this sense, we want to question the capital of Colombia about the challenges posed by the first author in order to solve what the second one shows. Some questions in this regard would be: Is there a transition towards a rururban pluriverse? What are the actions that operationalise these decolonial approaches? What does the city contribute to the debate on the future and how does it respond to the socio-environmental conflicts of the present? What socio-environmental conflicts (tensions) have shaped Bogotá and what are the recent urban challenges that respond to them?
The "realities are plural and in continuous construction" explains Escobar (2020) and the urban civilising phenomenon, since classical times, tends to unify and separate us from the earth. Therefore, the concept of the pluriversal city explores the idea of a city where many worlds fit, reconnected with our planet and rethinking our modes of existence on it. We invite those who reflect, propose or execute actions on Bogotá - from architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, geography, the arts, philosophy, history or sociology - to publish their proposals or results in response to Escobar's call to terraform (re-earthing) cities, or to remedy the conditions of "division, segregation, tearing apart, conflict" proposed by Fernández. We want to place special emphasis on research that contributes to a new design for the pluriverse, a world where there is room for other worlds based on actions such as: recommunalising social life; relocalising social, productive and cultural activities; reinforcing autonomies in the face of globalisation; depatriarchalising, de-racialising and decolonising social relations; or terraforming life and building networks between initiatives and transformative alternatives (Escobar, 2022).

This call aims to be an X-ray of contemporary Bogotá, an alternative panorama of itself and its relationship with other Colombian, Latin American and world cities. On this occasion, the Visual Article section aims to contrast various perspectives from the perspective of research and creation, and therefore calls for the joint nomination of two or more artists to illustrate the themes of this issue. The selection of the visual article will be the responsibility of the editorial team, who will act as blind peers.

Colloquium on A32: Forms of Life in the National Museum of Natural Sciences, CSIC

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 08:05:31 +0000

Watch recording on YOUTUBE: https://lifehub.csic.es/coloquio-formas-de-vida-un-dialogo-con-motivo-de-la-publicacion-del-monografico-de-la-revista-astragalo/

Astrágalo admitted to the FECYT

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 12:21:08 +0000

RESULTS OF THE EVALUATION

We inform you that the result of the evaluation, in provisional resolution, of the 8th edition of the evaluation process of the editorial and scientific quality of Spanish scientific journals that the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) has carried out during 2023, has been AWARDED in the areas of Engineering and Architecture and Archaeology, Anthropology and Ethnography.

Attached are the evaluation sheets with the assessment of each of the quantitative indicators as well as the score obtained in the visibility and impact indicator.

Qualitative assessment obtained:

1.Structure of the journal and scientific orientation.
Grade: 7
Observations:
The journal, which has evolved over the last 25 years, aims to analyse the experimental and critical thinking of the current state of the art in the construction of cities and the craft of architecture. The current purpose of the journal is to "disseminate the work of intellectuals (academics and professionals, new or established) from all over the world who are able to offer transdisciplinary contributions that propose a critical analysis of Architecture in its insertion in urban cultures". The structure and sections of the journal are coherent with its focus and scope. The periodicity of the journal is annual, from 2021 each issue is titled as a monograph and the number of contributions is adequate, although for a scientifically oriented journal it would be recommended to increase the number of publications annually. The layout and design is congruent with the style of the journal. The images published are of an adequate resolution, but the quality of the graphics could be improved. Keywords could also be included at the beginning of the article. Contributions are accepted and published in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

2.Structure of the articles published in the journal and their scientific orientation.
Grade: 7
Observations:
It follows an editorial model in accordance with the purpose of the publication. However, due to its purpose, some articles lack references, other articles include a brief CV of the author (but not all of them). The criteria for the structure could be unified. In many cases the articles are closer to popularisation than to research. Academic rigour is typical of the area of knowledge. There are articles corresponding to disciplines far removed from those of architecture which, in principle, is an advantage for increasing the scope of the journal and which could add value to the publication. However, it would also be advisable to encourage the participation of authors from other disciplines with competences in urban planning, such as civil engineers, in order to promote participation in a multidisciplinary context.

3.Methodology of the journal articles.
Grade: 5
Observations:
The articles are explained in a rigorous manner, although the inclusion of techniques and methods of analysis that improve the scientific orientation of the journal is recommended.

4.Relevance of the journal's contribution to its area of knowledge.
Grade: 7
Observations:
The originality of the articles published could be enhanced by increasing the number of articles in the journal and, in turn, could be improved by increasing its periodicity, given that in one year the opportunities may be many and of different kinds. As an example, the incursion of artificial intelligence in the future development of cities deserves an article reflecting on human creativity (originality of a free architectural creation) versus the development of algorithms based on what is known/learnt. It is also recommended that a section on future lines of research be included to encourage future work. Likewise, the participation of the private sector in the publication could represent an opportunity in the development of new lines of research and an improvement in the transfer of UNIVERSITY-BUSINESS knowledge.

5.Specialisation of the Board or Committee (Editorial, Advisory, Scientific...) of the journal in which the power to decide on the contents to be published resides.
Grade: 8
Observations:
The editorial team is made up of the Management, Editors and Scientific Committee, Ethics Committee and a graphic designer with members mainly from the national and international academic world. Most of the members are from the academic sector and are associated with a link where their specialisation can be verified. All have experience in the scientific field of the journal. It is recommended that the participation of private enterprise and other profiles related to the field of the journal be extended.

The mark obtained in the qualitative evaluation is: 6.8 out of 10.

Extension of the deadline for the monograph "City, gender and care".

Mon, 29 May 2023 14:27:46 +0000

Issue A31 (EXTRA) From Composition to Editing has been published.

Fri, 05 May 2023 09:26:41 +0000

Extension of deadline: THE LEGACIES OF COLIN ROWE; MATHEMATICS, CONTEXTUALISM, COLLAGE CITY AND BEYOND.

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 18:36:33 +0000

GU Design Network New York presents a new session seminar Contextualism Collage City and Beyond

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 07:02:15 +0000

A new issue of Astrágalo has been published. A30 "designing for the real world".

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 14:14:12 +0000

Astragalo, accepted by SCOPUS

Sat, 17 Sep 2022 07:53:36 +0000

Astragalo has been accepted for Scopus. The Scopus Content Selection & Advisory Board (CSAB) has reviewed the application and approved it for coverage. For broad information, the reviewer comments are copied below: This is a well organised journal publishing material that is being cited, underlining the importance of the journal in its research field. The only areas of weakness are that some of those involved lack SCOPUS profiles and some of the abstracts are short. The journal is likely to interest SCOPUS users. + The journal has scholarly relevance as evidenced by citations in other journals currently covered by Scopus. + In general, the content of the articles is consistent with the scope and aims of the journal. - Some of the abstracts are too short and without adequate detail to be of value in understanding the article content. + The journal has clear aims and scope/journal policies that are consistent with the journal’s content. + Peer review type is clearly stated and is supported by appropriate reviewer guidelines.

It is expected that by the end of October 2022 the procedure will be completed and the journal will be fully linked to SCOPUS.

New call for papers - Astrágalo Journal - 2022 and 2023

Sat, 10 Sep 2022 12:49:20 +0000

A31 (2022) EXTRA. THE LEGACIES OF COLIN ROWE; MATHEMATICS, CONTEXTUALISM, COLLAGE CITY AND BEYOND.

Colin Rowe transformed and changed over his lifetime, constructing and refining his intellectual and conceptual apparatus in response to his changing circumstances. There can be little doubt that the single most formative experience of the young Rowe was his time with Rudolf Wittkower at the Warburg Institute, after his earlier architectural education at Liverpool University, whose Professor Patrick Abercrombie guided the re-building of London after WW II. Rowe attempted unsuccessfully to adapt Wittkower’s diagrammatic analyses to Le Corbusier’s St Dié with his students Robert Maxwell and James Stirling. Later with the Texas Rangers he began to unpack the Wittkoverian geometry into the urban landscape, studying Le Corbusier’s League of Nations with his colleagues Robert Slutsky, Bernard Hoesli and John Hedjuk. He continued this process to recoup the traditional, classical city via Camillo Sitte in the 1950s with Alvin Boyarsky at Cornell, and then in the mid-1960s with Wayne Copper and Tom Schumaker. From this hybrid base, Rowe constructed a new, meta-historical, reflexive, curatorial apparatus of the “city as museum” outlined in Collage City with Fred Koetter and the Roma Interrotta Team (1978). As argued in Recombinant Urbanism (2005) many of the subsequent Urban Design movements unfolded from this layered, diagrammatic, multi-scalar approach to communal history, memory and the environment in the following half-century ranging from the Neo-Rationalism, De-construction, New Urbanism, Parametric Urbanism, Landscape Urbanism, Ecological Urbanism, Strategic Urbanism, to the emphasis on Historic Preservation, Adaptive re-use, the self-built megacity and the informational city. Even in Covid Urban Designers still struggle with the complexity and contradictions of classical and modern continuities that made Rowe’s intellectual struggle so difficult and dynamic.

It seems an appropriate time to revisit Contextualism and Collage City and Roma Interrotta within the framework of contemporary urban design networks, and the new tools of representation available in the contemporary metacity of information.

In this sense, authors are invited, from among other related instances, to focus on Contextualism, Collage City and beyond, to investigate Colin Rowe’s mid-twentieth century role in appropriating Sitte’s 1890’s reaction to Von Forster’s 1860 imperial design for the Vienna Ringstrasse. Rowe’s critical appropriation paved the way for later iterations and code shifts that greatly expanded into a more fragmented, inclusive Collage City. It took Rowe several iterations to develop this concept with Fred Koetter and with his Roma Interrotta team. Moreover, authors are called to explore strength and weaknesses of the mutations of Rowe’s classical impulse as it, in its turn, evolved with urban design beyond the binary into the 21st century.

Guess Editor: David Grahame Shane Columbia University

20 November (extended deadline): submission of articles' deadline

20 December (extended deadline): external reviewers' response deadline (60 days)

31 December: final decision for publishing the article (90 days)

A3X (202x). ORIENTED OBJECTS FOR AN ONTOLOGY

Contemporary philosophy can be divided (very roughly) between a varied group of thinkers whose axis is based on problems of the subject (such as those questions linked to ideology, language and social practice) such as Ranciere or Zizek and a group –much less nourished and published– whose interest lies in defining a philosophical realism that can transcend any philosophy centred on consciousness, experience, action or existence that declines to be objectualist, which would be a nickname applicable to thinkers like Latour and De Landa, within a modern tradition that reaches a certain part of Heidegger’s production and that of North Whitehead. In this context, one of his founder-cultivators –Graham Harman– proposed the expression OOO (object-oriented ontology), within his field of installation which he calls speculative realism and which aims to analyse the relationship between real objects and intentional objects (which we could describe as projected) and/or sensitive objects (which we could define as any objectology of aesthetic-communicational will). Although these thinkers accept that the intentional object is subsidiary (or vicar) to the real object with which it tries to establish relationships, it would seem that deepening such a real-intentional relationship comprises a substantive part of the OOO programme. In this A30, the aim is to invert the OOO formula, from Object-Oriented Ontology, to Ontologically-Oriented Objects and, in short, to contribute to the discussion of the relations between intentionality and reality, which is none other than the problem of the project.

We are looking for a guest editor. If you are interested, please send a brief CV to astragalo@us.es, together with an advance proposal for this monograph, and you can also propose an alternative call, without changing the title.

A32 (2023) EXTRA. FROM COMPOSITION TO EDITING.

The transition between globalisations has been experienced in the field of architecture unconsciously, randomly and collected by a multiplicity of insufficient and partial responses, in a complex process mediated by the obligatory incorporation into contributory and productive networks. We would say that, without hardly feeling it, contemporary architecture has been subjected to a process of continuous editing by external agents who have seductively dictated its inexcusable adaptation to their languages, their presentations, values and procedures. In its tour de force, with these external requirements that sought to insert it into an interior even more powerful and enveloping than its own, architecture has mutated into a body, traversed by multiple practices, that is never capable of showing anything but a hologram of its appearance, in which the memory - or at least the traces - of its historical natures are incorporated.

The call that we have entitled "from composition to edition", delimits a space of contributions that is undefined in its own limits, unless we investigate the reality of both. Thus, composition as a concept of order and power, of hierarchy and system, would have been deconstructed by a complex practice full of singularities and essays, which provide the first trace of an unconscious mutation and, from the other extreme -if it really is-, we would have converged on the considerations of fluidification of the preceding categories: order, system, hierarchy..., to insert the monstrous body of the architectural into a symbiont as a production proper to post-production that would shape it in the contemporary support of communicative materiality.

We are aware that the call for this monographic issue of Astrágalo is aimed at contributions that act reflexively on this growing complexity, of which it is impossible today to implement a characteristic entity, but whose state encourages an open debate attentive to other positions, in which crossroads can be guessed at as a result of the confluence of the paths opened up by a research seduced by the very object it is incapable of shaping. This would at least encourage an incipient topology of the quotidian in which it would be possible to glimpse ways back.

Guest editor: José Ramón Moreno Pérez. University of Seville.

30 December 2022: deadline for submission of articles.

30 January 2022: deadline for external reviewers (60 days)

25 February 2023: decision deadline from article submission (90 days)

A33 (2023): CITY, GENDER AND CARE

Urban planning is not and has not been neutral. It has essentially been conceived from a patriarchal, capitalist and pyramidal vision, which has given total priority to productive activities, assigned to men and by the male gender. As a result, only the productive sphere has been taken into account, while the other three spheres of human life have been marginalised and made invisible: the sphere of reproduction and care; the sphere of community life, interrelation and social and political activity; and the sphere of personal development.

For this reason, we speak of feminist urbanism, whose prior objective consists of the critical recognition of reality from the perspective of women's experience. In urban area study projects, the working premise of feminist groups is the urban reconnaissance walks, which precede both exploratory walks and daily walks, in which women walk through the neighbourhood in groups, sharing their stories and experiences, and explaining the reasons for each enclave and the perceptions of each specific urban space. Taking to the streets is an act of rebellion and a political action.

And today we turn to ecofeminism, as it brings together the issues of the environmental crisis and the crisis of care: it critically analyses the beliefs that sustain the ecocidal, patriarchal, capitalist and colonial model of our civilisation; based on the nefarious hierarchical pyramid that puts men as the sex at the top and women, animals, trees, vegetation and resources in the lowest and most exploitable strata. Ecofeminism, as a philosophy and as an action, denounces the risks to which people and all other living beings are subjected, proposing alternative approaches to reverse this systematic war that capitalism has decreed against life. It is, in short, a plural and diverse position, rooted in different places. It therefore proposes the recovery of the values of care, applying them to the scale of ecosystem care. In other words, the values of caring for people are extended to caring for society and nature, but this must in no way imply a technophobic and nostalgic return to a pre-technological or essentialist society.

In conclusion, the challenge today lies in constructing new narratives, as opposed to hegemonic stories; new narratives based on feminist demands for equality of people based on differences, placing care at the forefront and confronting the climate crisis. New narratives that analyse and propose what an egalitarian city is and how it transforms the way housing, buildings and public spaces are designed.

Guest editors: Zaida Muxí (ETSA Barcelona) and Josep Maria Montaner (ETSA Barcelona).

30 May 2023: deadline for article submissions.

15 June 2023: deadline for external reviewers (60 days).

15 July 2023: decision deadline from article submission (90 days)

A34: Life Forms

Guest editors:

Marta Velasco Martín

Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Sciences, University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) and researcher in the Health, History and Society group of the Regional Centre for Biomedical Research (CRIB, UCLM). LifeHUB.CSIC Network

Degree in Biology (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), postgraduate degree in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) and PhD in Logic and Philosophy of Science (Universidad de Salamanca, Instituto de Filosofía del CSIC). Her doctoral thesis entitled "Drosophila genetics and gender: circulation of objects and knowledge" obtained the qualification of outstanding cum laude and Extraordinary Doctoral Prize for the 2018-2019 academic year. Her lines of research address the history of women scientists; the study of the influence of gender in the construction of biomedical knowledge and in cultural and historical studies of science and technology; and the social construction of disease in the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as collective responses and the establishment of measures to combat them from a gender perspective.

Jesús Rey Rocha.

Department of Science, Technology and Society. Institute of Philosophy, Spanish National Research Council. (IFS, CSIC). Red LifeHUB.CSIC. https://digital.csic.es/cris/rp/rp11211 https://scholar.google.es/citations?hl=en&user=m9ggL3QAAAAJ

Focus:

Maintaining life on planet Earth and the well-being of its inhabitants, human and non-human, animal and plant, bacteria, protists and fungi, both individually and collectively, must be at the top of the political and scientific agendas, especially as our human actions have aggravated the climate and environmental crises in recent years.

Fifty years after the publication of The Limits to Growth report, commissioned from MIT by the Club of Rome, its message is still valid: Earth's interconnected resources - the global system of nature in which we live - are unlikely to be able to support current rates of economic and population growth of the human species well beyond the year 2100, if at all, even with advanced technology; if global population growth, industrialisation, pollution, food production and exploitation of natural resources were to continue unabated, the absolute limits of growth on Earth would be reached, in a situation that could be described as an environmental pandemic.

As the first quarter of the 21st century draws to a close, the human species is facing what we might call an anthropic paradox, for despite the evidence of its contribution to the overexploitation of the planet's resources and the worsening conditions for life on the planet, it is confronted with the yearnings and ambitions of its species to transcend its human condition, to improve life as we know it and, eventually, to become a creator of life. Faced with this situation, some models of societies seem unable to find institutional referents and personal models that provide the certainties and confidence necessary to feel the security on which to live. Moreover, they must face increasing levels of complexity, since not only are there multiple options to choose from, but their advantages and disadvantages are not always clear, are not comparable or are even contradictory (or appear to be so), in other words, they are faced with various trilemmas and plurilemmas.

The monograph 'Life Forms' addresses this anthropic paradox by studying the challenges, impacts and social and philosophical implications of research on the origins, (co-)evolution, diversity and synthesis of life from a multidisciplinary, integrative and collaborative approach that calls upon the expertise of a wide range of disciplines - from the Life, Physical and Chemical Sciences, through Engineering, to the Social Sciences and the Humanities─. We believe that the understanding - and control - of life, from the (sub)cellular to the organismal and systems scale, requires philosophical, ethical, political and social reflection, due to the possible impact of the application of the technologies that make this possible and the results of research in this field; that is, due to the impact of science, technology and human activity, on its own life and on the conditions for life on planet Earth - and eventually on its satellite and other planets. Thus, the development of purely scientific and technological aspects, accompanied by a constant and simultaneous ethical and philosophical evaluation of research, allows the analysis of the progress made and expected, of its implications and social challenges, of its repercussions, benefits, impacts and problems, of its safety and biosafety, of its risks, and of its cultural implications. Furthermore, we believe that the participation of society in them must be considered. We cannot neglect, in this context, the role of citizens: how they are and will be affected and their eventual involvement.

The idea of compiling these reflections in the form of a monograph arose at the meeting "Challenges, impacts and social implications of research on life. Let's think, and reflect

together to act" that was held at the Casa de la Ciencia in Seville in May 2022, sponsored by the CSIC's Life-Connections network (LifeHub). This meeting allowed interaction and dialogue between professionals trained in different experimental and social fields, directly or indirectly related to life sciences. For this reason, 'Formas de vida' has been designed to be built in a cooperative way, thanks to the interaction and collaboration of different authors. The monograph is thus conceived as an exercise in dialogue between sciences and cultural disciplines, with the aim of contributing to show the need for this dialogue in order to generate a broader and more innovative vision, capable of evolving in the face of the wide range of changes that are occurring in this first quarter of the century.

Astrágalo already published an issue dedicated to this topic in 2017, under the title Elusive city. Forms of life and modes of existence [https://editorial.us.es/es/num-23-2017]. With this new issue, we intend to revisit the theme 'Ways of life', treating it from a perspective that results from the combination in interaction between the Life, Physical and Chemical Sciences, Engineering, Social Sciences and Humanities, through the research tools that are specific to them, without forgetting the interactions with the architectural, spatial, cultural, urban, geographical and artistic spheres, which are the journal's own themes.

Manuscript proposals

Manuscripts are invited under the general theme Life Forms.

Proposals should preferably be supported by two or more signatures and propose interdisciplinary approaches. Alternatively, single-person papers will be considered, open to the possible later incorporation of new authors, as a result of the process described in the following paragraph.

The manuscripts received will be circulated among the participants in the monograph in order to allow the exchange of specific contributions and cross-references, and even to facilitate the incorporation of new authors into manuscripts in progress, subject to the agreement of the proposers.

Manuscripts will be accepted on the following topics or any other topic of interest related to the general theme of the issue

- The concept of 'life forms'.

- What is life? Is the debate and research on what life is still ongoing, and does it still make sense?

- The concept of life: Are there different concepts of life? Biological, social, economic, cultural, political, etc. elements in the definition of life.

- Difference between life and living.

- The identification of life. Properties of life. Attributes and phenotypes of life. Differentiation between living and non-living.

- Perception of life: external vision and self-recognition of life.

- Why is it important to define what life is: search for extraterrestrial life, artificial life and intelligence.

- Natural and artificial environments for the establishment of life. New niches resulting from anthropogenic action.

- New forms of life, new forms of organisation. Where life, humanity, is going (biological, social, cultural... perspectives of evolution).

- Paradoxes and conflicts related to the establishment of different life forms.

- Life forms and complexity/complex systems.

- New and old life forms. Emergence of new life forms. Loss of biodiversity. Extinctions.

- Diversity of life forms. Why is it important to conserve biodiversity?

- City, rural environment and life forms.

- The relationship between humans and other life forms.

- Artificial creation and enhancement of life forms.

- The impact of the application of new technologies in curing diseases and prolonging life.

- The collective health of life. Global health.

Dates:

13 January 2023: deadline for receipt of papers.

16 January-17 February 2023: exchange and cross-checking of manuscripts between authors.

30 March 2023: deadline for submissions of papers.

28 April 2023: deadline for a response from external reviewers (30 days).

28 June 2023: decision deadline (60 days).

Launch of issue 31 (EXTRA) The legacies of Colin Rowe; mathematics, contextualism, collage city and beyond.

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 17:39:13 +0000

DEADLINE EXTENDED FOR SUBMISSION OF ARTICLES FOR A30 "DESIGNING FOR THE REAL WORLD".

Mon, 30 May 2022 19:08:20 +0000

Designing for the real world

Vol. 1 No. 30 (2022)

Guess Editor: José Enrique López-Canti Professor at Universidad de Sevilla

15 June: submission of articles' deadline. (EXTENDED TO 15 JULY 2022)

02 August: external reviewers' response deadline (60 days) (EXTENDED TO 20 AUGUST 2022)

30 September: final decision for publishing the article (90 days)

Published issue A29 (EXTRA) Divided Cities

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 11:02:40 +0000

The new issue of the magazine, A28 Ciudad Enferma/Sick City/Cidade Doente, has been published today

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 11:35:13 +0000

Next call A30 Designing for the real world

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 08:28:33 +0000

To the insidious and recurrent question of excluding latitude about what it is to project as opposed to design, is added the tragicomic vacillation about what reality might be, or better, among the possible ones, the one that will be the one that will be the one to be decanted for a survey, which is not a determining objective.

Now that the economic crises of 2008 and the pandemic crisis of 2020 have passed - as routes, but also as lacerating blows - and we suspect that they are the same, we need to take a stance that is, at the same time, an action, renewing the causes that unfortunately added up from the disciplines that before these crises traditionally had this social attribution.

Renewing means not only rethinking what architecture is today, but also what world it is, what reality it reveals. If we admit design as a category of categories, put into the dimension "World", it entails considering "everyday life, but it goes on to infrastructures, cities, inhabited space, medical technologies, food, institutions, landscapes, the virtual and, ultimately, experience" if we follow the reflection that Arturo Escobar proposed in "Autonomy and Design, the realisation of the communal" in 2016.

In the constitution of any statute of renewal, a state of the question appears, in the light of some antecedents in order to, on the basis of this, bet on the radicality of what, until then, was not feasible. The dislodging of the Modern base, which permeates everything with its exact inadequacy, would require, in such a renewal, an absorption wipe that clears the consequences in order to make visible what we have as a common foundation.

Some, using guarantors who have limited degrees of freedom, appeal to fraternity and forgiveness for cohesion. Others, autistic, maintain that the crisis is a transition and that we will get out of it sooner or later. There are those who take advantage of the news of the last few days, with the wretched consequence of its acceleration.

Real worlds, distant yet interacting, whose final clause of the constitution of the feasible leaves the door open to action generated by an ontological key of design where there are no specialists but rather responsibilities disseminated to achieve autonomy and formulate life-forms.

Extension of the deadline for submissions for A29 Divided Cities

Tue, 14 Sep 2021 09:43:26 +0000

Extension of the deadline for submission of articles for A28 Sick City

Fri, 07 May 2021 15:56:39 +0000

Released issue Astrágalo 27, 2020. Monograph. Delhi and Its Inhabited Imaginaries. Architectures of Living

Mon, 08 Mar 2021 16:54:01 +0000