PhD Student Awarded Fellowship from the Center for Peace and Development

Felipe Flores, a PhD Student in Planning, Design, and Construction under the advisement of Dr. Angela Person, has recently been awarded the Security in Context Research Fellowship from the Center for Peace and Development! This fellowship will allow Felipe to pursue his research involving Indigenous communities in the Amazon. He is particularly interested in exploring how design can alternatively engage with issues related to encroachment on Indigenous territories, resource extraction, and contemporary narratives of what a possible post-development landscape in the Andean Amazon could hopefully look like.

Felipe, an Ecuadorian architect, has been involved in participatory design projects and research with Indigenous Communities and vulnerable populations in South America since 2013. After he began practicing as an architect, Felipe started to become very aware of impoverished populations who could not afford the services of an architect. These populations also often lived in spaces that lacked any planning legislation or any sort of government presence.  

Felipe then became an active volunteer in Mana del Cielo, an NGO focused on assisting communities affected by natural disasters. This work allowed him to work much more closely with clients who were deeply invested in the outcome of the projects. This opened Felipe up to participatory design and the benefits of working with clients who are incredibly involved in the work. Felipe became interested in the role architecture could play in working to lessen the great amount of inequality existing in the region.  

While doing this type of work, Felipe was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue his Masters in Architecture at the University of Illinois. While doing research for his master’s program in Colombia, Felipe started to notice how government intervention in Indigenous and vulnerable communities was often more harmful than helpful, usually due to a disregard for the populations’ culture and worldview.  

While in Chile, though, Felipe found that the Mapuche population, an Indigenous nation, had developed the First Design Standards Guidelines, which outlined their values and worldview in architectural terms. These guidelines allowed for designs that were more in line with the Mapuche desires for self-determination and territorial sovereignty. This has inspired Felipe to work on creating a new Indigenous planning theory for the Shuar and Achuar communities in the Amazon in Ecuador based on existing local land-management strategies, Indigenous knowledge, and resource use strategies. 

The Security in Context fellowship will help Felipe start initial conversations with Indigenous leaders and scholars who work in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, the home of the Shuar and Achuar communities. He plans to host a mini-symposium with these leaders and scholars in the Spring of 2022.

Congratulations to Felipe Flores on this achievement!