16. Alternatives for Contested Mega-projects: An Academic Venture into Activist Space

The following chapter is centered on the endeavors of a small number of researchers and lecturers who joined forces with urban residents of consolidated riverbank settlements in Guayaquil (Ecuador) threatened with eviction due to the implementation of an ‘ecological’ mega-project. This large-scale ministry-led intervention over Guayaquil’s urban waterfronts fits within a series of recent transformations heralding the notion of Buen Vivir (‘Good Living’) that over the last decade nuanced the professional environment nationwide by opening new opportunities for local urban professionals, straddling them between traditional top-down urban planning and community-led city-making practices. In the context of contested waterfront renewal projects along the Estero Salado estuary in Guayaquil, a design workshop titled Designing Inclusion (2015) provided the development of alternative urban design visions by bringing together diverse local voices and expertise with foreign academics and practitioners, thereby transcending the customary boundaries to social engagement between architects, activists, communities and government bodies. Building on the experience of this summer school and ongoing research-by-design activities in Guayaquil, the chapter scrutinizes the recent change in the professional environment that Ecuadorian architects have been involved with, and examines how the condition of being ‘socially engaged’ affects the conventional notions of architects and design professionals involved in teaching and research.