VIBRArch | Changing priorities

The 2010s constituted a fruitful decade for architectural research. Along with traditional ones, a new generation of relevant topics appeared on the scene increasingly but gradually enough so as to be tackled by a growing community of academics and practitioners. However and despite the fact that awareness of global climate change in economically developed regions all over the world had begun in the late 1980s, the end of the last decade witnessed an unprecedented increase of social awareness on this matter turning it into apparently the most imperative priority.

But on January 30, 2020 everything changed abruptly when the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus disease 2019 a public health emergency of international concern and a pandemic just forty days later. During these more than two years most of the countries on the planet have devoted their efforts and resources to control the malady and to overcome the frequent and meaningful consequences of the necessary isolations and even lockdowns on the economy. Architectural research has not been insensitive to this emergency and many researchers have adapted their agenda in order to be helpful.

Therefore, while still necessarily devoting our attention to indispensable matters such as poverty and migration, common wealth and right to progress, feminism and inclusivity, interculturality and multiculturality, childhood and elderly, affordable housing and right to the city; and having rediscovered the need for combining these commendable ambitions with the rational use of raw materials and energy sources, and the adequate management of the built environment in order to make a feasible tomorrow for our planet; researchers on architecture have assumed our responsibility in assisting humanity to overcome the current sanitary crisis.

As a result, research on architecture must focus on a variety of topics whose priority has proved to be changeable depending on the geographical, economical and temporary context. Indeed, current research on architecture seldom has a unique and linear approach to a single matter. On the contrary, multidisciplinar approaches for multipurpose goals are becoming more and more frequent. This trend is providing research on architecture with a noticeable resiliency and capability to adapt itself to changing scenarios and to develop aptitudes and proposals for immediately combating unexpected situations.

The third edition of the Valencia International Biennial of Research in Architecture will welcome keynote speakers and papers on developing initiatives, ongoing activities and findings which make architecture and neighboring disciplines research adaptable, resilient and essential for a variety of changing scenarios, especially for those matters with a current or imminent relevance.

Ivan Cabrera i Fausto
Conference Chair | Director of the Higher Technical School of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Valencia