Pliego Alvarado, Angelica Elizabeth (2025) Reimagining Our Neighborhood: Participatory Design with the A.P.R. Community in Mexico City. Masters thesis, Concordia University.
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Abstract
Alianza Popular Revolucionaria (A.P.R.) is an emblematic housing complex built for the workers of the Mexican state on the southern side of Mexico City. Its emergence — alongside other notable housing projects during the XX century — aimed to respond to the housing crisis by providing high-quality homes as well as financial means to acquire them. Close to its 50th anniversary, this thesis seeks to bring attention to the struggles that the inhabitants of the A.P.R. are facing in their process of coexistence with two important non-human actors: water and the built environment that this neighborhood represents. Relying on Bruno Latour’s Parliament of Things and participatory methods, this design research highlights the matters of concern that emerge from the interrelationship among these three actors: The inhabitants, water and the built environment.
This thesis employed Participatory Design (PD) to develop a public space proposal that fosters coexistence with water and nature, while enhancing ways of inhabiting the selected site through an ongoing collaborative process with members of the A.P.R. community. This work relied on Lim & Stolterman’s approach to relying on prototypes as a way to explore a contested public space collectively with A.P.R. community members, and to obtain new knowledge about their matters of concern. In addition, this research combined collaborative sessions and ethnography to learn about the challenges of A.P.R. inhabitants and how non-humans also influence the process of decision-making.
Keywords: Participatory Design, Non-Human Actors, Matters of Concern, Urban Design, Sponge Park.
| Divisions: | Concordia University > Faculty of Fine Arts > Design and Computation Arts |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
| Authors: | Pliego Alvarado, Angelica Elizabeth |
| Institution: | Concordia University |
| Degree Name: | M.Des. |
| Program: | Design |
| Date: | 29 September 2025 |
| Thesis Supervisor(s): | Racine, Martin |
| Keywords: | Participatory Design, Non-Human Actors, Matters of Concern, Urban Design, Sponge Park. |
| ID Code: | 996436 |
| Deposited By: | Angelica Elizabeth Pliego Alvarado |
| Deposited On: | 29 Jun 2026 15:02 |
| Last Modified: | 29 Jun 2026 15:02 |
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