REIA #27 - Call For Papers

2025-09-14

Article submissions for REIA issue 27 are open from August 1 to October 30, 2025. The issue will be published in late December.

The thematic section of this issue will focus On Transitions: Architecture Without Interiors, with Camilo Restrepo Ochoa as guest editor.

The proposal is to approach the dissolution of the architectural interior through three complementary lines of inquiry: culture and territory, climate and comfort, and expanded space. Together, these axes aim to activate a critical reading of contemporary forms of inhabitation, moving beyond traditional architectural boundaries to engage with the situated, the environmental, and the relational.

Culture and Territory
This axis addresses the cultural, geographic, and political dimensions of the interior—not merely as a physical enclosure, but as a symbolic and ideological construct. It emphasizes the contrast between consolidated spatial models in the Global North—based on compartmentalization, climate control, and environmental domestication—and situated practices in the Global South, which often respond to different environmental, social, and cultural logics. From a postcolonial perspective, this axis calls for the decentering of disciplinary narratives and the development of theoretical frameworks that recognize territorial specificity as a condition for spatial production.

Climate and Comfort
Architecture has historically functioned as a tool of environmental control. This axis explores how modern notions of comfort have shaped spatial form, often relying on mechanical conditioning and standardized interior parameters. In contrast, it revisits texts and projects that challenge these assumptions, question extractive models of sustainability, and propose new definitions of comfort grounded in ecological, contextual, and adaptive logics. The goal is to imagine architectures that do not isolate occupants from their environment, but instead negotiate actively with climate and atmospheric conditions.

Expanded Space
This axis shifts attention toward artistic, design-based, and conceptual practices that question the conventional separation between inside and outside, proposing open, ambiguous, or relational spatial configurations. It explores architectures defined not by enclosure, but by connection, transition, and modes of inhabiting. Particularly relevant are approaches involving soft infrastructures, shared domesticities, and invisible atmospheres, which expand the notion of space beyond the closed geometry of the built envelope.

Guest editor

Camilo Restrepo Ochoa is a Colombian architect and founder of AGENdA, a Medellín-based practice that explores the intersections between architecture, territory, climate, and culture. His work combines design research, critical thinking, and a strong commitment to the social and environmental conditions of the Global South. He has served as visiting professor at institutions such as Harvard GSD, ETH Zürich, and the Universidad de los Andes, and his work has been widely published and exhibited internationally. He is currently Visiting Professor at the Universidad Europea de Madrid.

REIA operates through a triple call for papers:

  • Thematic Call: Focused on emerging issues that define each issue. In this edition, the theme is On Transitions: Architecture Without Interiors, and authors are invited to submit articles that engage critically and directly with this topic. The full text of the call can be downloaded here: [Download Call #27].

  • Open Call: A section permanently open to high-quality submissions on any topic relevant to architectural research, with an emphasis on critical, interdisciplinary, and antidisciplinary approaches.

  • Pedagogical Call: A space for research stemming from teaching, academic studios, or experimental projects related to educational practice, preferably in connection with the current thematic call.