(In)forms of empowerment. The role of the project in inclusive urban transformation processes

Since the 1990s, the progressive contraction of public policies and the transfer of capital to the globalized private financial sector have subverted and radically transformed the processes of production and consumption (of the city), provoking cyclical international economic crises, reflecting a crisis in the political and social systems that had characterized the Societies of the post-World War II period. Phenomena of social exclusion and spatial segregation (never fully resolved) have gradually worsened in the last thirty years, affecting similarly not only the South of the World, outlining an urban context profoundly changed by new forms and new dimensions of urbanization. These emergent conditions have crystallized into the physical form of cities and appear most clearly in neighborhoods and housing complexes promoted by the welfare state, in "temporary" solutions for communities and ethnic groups, seasonal workers or migrants, or in the "informal" development of peri-urban fabrics. In this panorama, the paper presents some design explorations (didactic and field research) conducted on the popular habitat of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area in order to recuperate the operational character of the research on Urban Morphology as community empowerment tools seeking socio-spatial justice.