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Joana Rafael is an architect practitioner and Postdoctoral Researcher, specializing in ecological concerns related to pollution and contamination, both indoors and in urban planning. Her research explores the intersections of architecture and urbanism with human geography, environmental studies, and power dynamics, encompassing contemporary culture, media studies, art, and technology. She investigates the materiality and limits of physical infrastructures in relation to Earth's systems and the reciprocal relationships between humans and nature, with a particular focus on radiologically contaminated environments. Joana has taught Contextual Studies and Contemporary Culture-related courses at institutions including ESAP in Porto, ISCE Douro in Penafiel, Central Saint Martins in London, and the University for the Creative Arts in Canterbury. She is a member of CEGOT (Center for Studies in Geography and Spatial Planning) and CEAA (Centro de Estudos Arnaldo Araújo), and a co-founder of REFINERY BOARD. Joana holds a Master of Architecture and Urban Cultures from Metropolis, Barcelona, as well as a Master of Research Architecture and a PhD in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London. She also earned a Healthier Materials and Sustainable Building Specialization certificate from Parsons School of Design, The New School. In addition to her academic pursuits, Joana is a certified farmer.

RESEARCH About

Keeping in Reserve

Rethinking Earth Crises Through Acts and Architectures of Reservation
PhD thesis DISSERTATION, Visual Cultures, Goldsmith, London

This thesis concerns architecture and engages with redefining its relation to acts and structures of reservation, posited as causes of, and as solutions to Earth crises – i.e. crises related to human-induced threats to, or arising from, the planetary environment. Here, what is meant by “reservation” is the production of (and the) arrangements to secure and keep apart – i.e. in reserve/s – things perceived as threatening to humanity or vital to its survival. In addition, the term here refers to another aspect of reservation - the expression of doubt regarding the efficacy of such arrangements.
This thesis contends that despite being intended to act as architectural solutions, agents or safeguards for the future and safety of (human) life on the planet, by failing to respect the inescapably interconnected nature of the environment and the reciprocity of its processes their extensive, cumulative and temporal qualities – reserve arrangements exacerbate rather than lessen the problems they set out to address. These assimilate the very structure and pattern of crises they attempt to resolve and keep morphologically reproducing the ill effects of threats - thus, not only exposing architecture and the reserve's fragile limits but, ultimately, cementing them as fictions.
This argument is made in relation to attempts to guard and defend against three categories of threats from Earth crises: destruction and danger; depletion of natural and artificial resources; contamination and pollution. These are read through ‘voiced reservations’ from the fields of Arts, critical theory, Earth (and social) sciences, radical ecology, speculative philosophy, cultural studies, architectural theory and even science fiction, which offer theoretical means to reflect on general laws of acting upon the planet and in relation to the future. Problematizing the construction of the planet through the logic of the reserve, this thesis calls for new methodological engagements.

online at: https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/22734/1/VIS_thesis_RodriguesJS_2017.pdf