Architecture of Belonging

Activating residual spaces for Indigenous people

Abstract

This paper presents an architectural design studio that articulates the concepts of ‘terrain vague’ and the ‘productive city’ to reimagine Indigenous presence, visibility, and belonging within contemporary urban environments. Addressing complex socio‑spatial challenges from a sustainability perspective requires acknowledging the limitations of urban space and recognising residual spaces as valuable, underutilised resources. In this context, terrain vague refers to the interstitial, overlooked, and often neglected spaces produced through successive layers of metropolitan growth. Situated at the thresholds of infrastructure, built form, and ecological systems, these voids and wastelands embody both the contradictions of capitalist urbanisation and the potential for alternative forms of occupation. The studio adopts a Self‑Directed Learning (SDL) framework to enable students to navigate indeterminacy, construct meaning, and develop agency when confronted with ambiguous and politically charged design conditions. SDL provides a pedagogical structure through which students progressively assume responsibility for their learning, experiment with methods of inquiry, and develop situated design responses. This approach helps students treat uncertainty as a creative thinking exercise. Florianópolis, Brazil, serves as the studio’s site. The city’s history of Indigenous displacement, ongoing struggles for Indigenous place, and pressured, economically speculative urban development creates a critical context for exploring how residual spaces might support Indigenous visibility and cultural continuity. By reframing terrain vague as a productive and ethical site, the studio encourages students to propose spatial interventions that re‑embed Indigenous lifeways within the urban fabric. These propositions emphasise relationality, mobility, ecological reciprocity, and forms of belonging that exceed conventional planning categories. The findings demonstrate that SDL‑driven design processes can support students in acquiring critical skills for real‑world projects. Student work reveals how terrain vague can operate as a platform for Indigenous agency, providing accommodation, communal gathering, ecological stewardship, and forms of visibility that include language, art, and education. The paper also documents the challenges inherent in conducting a studio from another country, including limited access to Indigenous communities and the need to navigate cultural diversities and sensitivities with care. Strategies for addressing these constraints, such as collaborative research, diverse forms of engagement, digital support, and iterative reflection, are presented as part of the studio’s methodological contribution. Overall, the studio demonstrates how combining terrain vague theory, productive city principles, and SDL pedagogy can cultivate a design environment in which students and tutors collaboratively engage with complex socio‑spatial issues. Through informed, reflective, and agency‑driven actions, students developed proposals that articulate new possibilities for Indigenous presence in the city, positioning architectural education as a site for ethical, political, and spatial transformation.