“III Symposium and International Workshop: [Re] think the democratic space – Architecture + City”, was held between 20-24 May 2019 in the campus of Uberaba University with the participation of students and professors of the Architecture and Urbanism department and professionals from different disciplines and countries; architects Horacio Cherniavsky (Paraguay), José Fernando Gomez Marmolejo (Ecuador), David Juarez (Spain), Nabil Bonduki (Brazil), filmmaker André Fratti Costa (Brazil) and philosopher Imaculada Kangussu (Brazil).

The symposium featured a workshop, lectures and thematic discussion tables on the subject “Re-existing”, reflecting on different ways to face contemporary urban problems and exchanging academic experiences. On 22.05.2019 David Juarez contributed with a lecture about “Practical democracy: space and society”.

The symposium came to an end with the presentation of the workshop results on the Alfredo Freire neighborhood 1. During the workshop, students engaged in creating cohesive solutions on projects spanning landscape and architecture design as well as audiovisual production. The workshop tackled social and spatial exclusion during the process of peripherization in Uberaba, specifically focusing on a housing complex built in 1983 at the “edge” of the city, which is currently in the sixth phase of expansion. The professionals who took part in the symposium, reflected on the enriching influences of knowledge and experience exchange that come from different countries.

“The theme of this workshop contains as much potential as it contains  problems. By bringing people from different backgrounds together, we are making the focus much more diverse. The issue at hand is being analysed from various angles and thus all these different profiles are complementing each other, bringing students into a far richer and more entertaining vision.” David Juarez

“Although they are all related to architecture, the practices, methodologies, ways of relating to the object and to the city may be different. So bringing guests from outside allows us to reflect on the bigger picture so that the students understand and stimulate new perspectives, possibilities and can articulate new fields of design, language and learn a little of the culture and history of the guests.” Thiago Reis, professor of Architecture at Uberaba