Dr Adriana Laura Massidda

School of Architecture

Lecturer in Architectural Humanities

a.l.massidda@sheffield.ac.uk

Arts Tower

Full contact details

Dr Adriana Laura Massidda
School of Architecture
Arts Tower
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN

Profile: I am currently working in two main research areas. First, for twelve years I have been studying and reconstructing the history of Buenos Aires shantytowns. Second, in my most recent research, I have begun to investigate and expand on the environmental aspects of the processes of urban change I have found when studying precarious settlements, linking them to architectural design. In particular, I am piloting research-by-design techniques and co-design in low-income housing contexts in the UK, more specifically in the context of two social housing complexes built on top of former sewage farms in London and Leicester. I am also preparing a new project to pursue similar work in Buenos Aires, thus combining both elements of my expertise.

Recent publication:

Villas en Dictadura. Córdoba, Rosario y Buenos Aires. Co-edited with Valeria Snitcofsky and Eva Camelli. Buenos Aires: Café de las Ciudades, 2021. Declared asset of cultural significance (Bien de Interés para la Comunicación Social) by the Buenos Aires Legislature in November 2023.

Research interests: Shantytown history, urban informality, urban history, social housing, (water and sewage) infrastructure, critical environmentalisms, waste, flooding, co-design, urban rivers, landscape design, phytoremediation.

Publications

Edited books

Massidda A, Snitcofsky VL & Camelli E (Eds.) (2021) Villas en Dictadura. Córdoba, Rosario y Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires: Café de las Ciudades.
Geraghty N & Massidda A (Ed.) (2019) Creative Spaces: Urban Culture and Marginality in Latin America. Institute of Latin American Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Journal articles

Massidda AL (2023) Reocupar, reconstruir, “refundar”. El repoblamiento de las villas del sur de Buenos Aires (1981-1985). Vivienda y Ciudad, 10, 72-93.
Massidda A, Camelli E & Snitcofsky V (2023) “Villas miseria” en Buenos Aires hacia mediados del siglo XX: tensiones políticas y primeras conceptualizaciones estatales. EURE (Santiago) - Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbano Regionales, 49(147), 1-21.
Massidda AL (2022) Slums, villas miseria and barriadas: why terms matter. Journal of Urban History.
Massidda AL (2022) Javier Auyero and Katherine Sobering, The Ambivalent State: Police–Criminal Collusion at the Urban Margins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 240, $29.95, pb.. Journal of Latin American Studies, 54(3), 553-555.
Massidda AL & Baumann H (2022) Art and the toxic politics of waste: Latin America. a roundtable discussion with filmmakers and researchers at University College London. A Contracorriente: una revista de estudios latinoamericanos, 20(1), 317-335.
Baumann H, Massidda A, Saad B, Saleh E & Stamatopoulou-Robbins S (2022) Film and the toxic politics of waste: a roundtable. e-flux Journal(127).
Massidda AL (2022) Negociaciones, permanencia y construcción cotidiana en villas: villas la lonja, cildáñez y castañares, Buenos Aires, 1958-1967. URBANA: Revista Eletrônica do Centro Interdisciplinar de Estudos sobre a Cidade, 9(1), 15-15.
Massidda AL (2021) Shantytowns and social engineering in 1950s Argentina. RIBAJ: The RIBA Journal.
Massidda AL (2021) Shantytowns, housing and state order: the Plan de Emergencia in 1950s Argentina. Planning Perspectives, 36(2), 215-236.
Elinbaum P & Massidda A (2020) La representación urbanística de los espacios informales. Las villas miseria de Buenos Aires (1947-1965). Bitácora Urbano Territorial, 30(1), 115-126.
Massidda AL (2019) Design exchanges in mid-twentieth century Buenos Aires: the programme Parque Almirante Brown and its process of creative appropriation. Journal of Design History, 32(1), 35-51.
Massidda AL (2018) Cómo nombrar a la informalidad urbana: una revisión de las definiciones en uso, sus implicaciones analíticas y su alcance. Quid 16, 10.
Massidda AL (2018) Lo político en lo urbano. Pobreza urbana en el pasado reciente. Villa Jardín, 1958-1967. Revista Encuentros Uruguayos, XI(1), 59-72.
Massidda AL (2018) Conflicting conceptions of domestic space: Shantytowns and state housing in contemporary Argentine cinema. Journal of Romance Studies, 18(2), 159-179.
Massidda AL (2018) Utopian visions for Buenos Aires shantytowns: collective imaginaries of housing rights, upgrading and eviction (1956-2013). Bulletin of Latin American Research, 37(2), 144-159.
Massidda AL (2017) Grassroots agency: participation and conflict in Buenos Aires shantytowns seen through the Pilot Plan for Villa 7 (1971–1975). Architecture_MPS.
Massidda AL (2017) Participación en la construcción popular del hábitat. Una revisión del Plan Piloto para Villa 7 en Buenos Aires [Participation in the popular construction of the habitat. A review of the Pilot Plan for Villa 7 in Buenos Aires]. Carta Económica Regional, 29(120).

Chapters

Massidda A (2022) Entre invisibilidades y dirigencias: mujeres en villas de Buenos Aires (1958-1967) In Cravino MC (Ed.), Historia y memoria de villas y favelas Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento
Massidda AL & Geraghty NHD (2019) The spatiality of desire in Martín Oesterheld’s La multitud (2012) and Luis Ortega’s Dromómanos (2012) In Massidda AL & Geraghty NHD (Ed.), Creative Spaces: Urban Culture and Marginality in Latin America

Dictionary/encyclopaedia entries

Massidda AL & Baumann H (2023) Ñiquiñaque/extraÑo. In Wastiary UCL Press.

Teaching interests

Architectural humanities
Architectural and landscape design
Research/doctoral supervision