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.

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.) (2022) 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 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) 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).
Massidda AL (2018) Conflicting conceptions of domestic space. 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) Autoconstrucción, participación y agencia. Una revisión del Plan Piloto para Villa 7 y las iniciativas ATEPAM en Buenos Aires. Carta Económica Regional, 29(120).
Massidda AL () Slums, villas miseria and barriadas: Why Terms Matter. Journal of Urban History.

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

Teaching interests

Architectural humanities
Architectural and landscape design
Research/doctoral supervision