From hybrid practice to epistemological framework: metamodernism in architectural knowledge production

Beyond Materiality Adaptive Reuse as a Situated and Ethical Practice in the Global South

Contemporary society faces a critical crossroads concerning its built and cultural legacy. In a global context shaped by climate emergency, resource scarcity, and the progressive loss of local identities, adaptive reuse emerges not only as a pragmatic strategy for sustainability but also as an ethical imperative and a catalyst for architectural innovation. This paper explores how this approach—understood in an expanded sense—reconfigures both material and cognitive heritage in a situated and collective dimension. Through a qualitative methodology applied to three case studies that integrate vernacular practices and community participation in Global South settings—the revitalization of seven Tulou in Fujian (China); the religious and secular complex Hikma in Dandaji (Niger); and the Chaki Wasi Crafts Center in Zumbahua (Ecuador)—this research reveals innovative, place-based strategies that transcend materiality and act as invisible agents for indigenous wisdom, traditional techniques, and communal ways of inhabiting the territory. Each project, from its geographical location and cultural background, activates deeper social, symbolic, and intangible reuse processes. These range from heritage acupuncture that reinforces the community logic of Chinese fortified dwellings as new cultural nodes; through the intercultural mediation of a sub-Saharan mosque that hybridizes vernacular methods with contemporary programs to dismantle spatial and religious hierarchies; to the conceptual recovery of Andean craftsmanship by means of an architectural reinterpretation of quincha and the collective endeavor of minga, fostering local economies and safeguarding women’s intergenerational knowledge. The study thus proposes a critical expansion of the concept of adaptive reuse from a decolonial and gender perspective, highlighting resilient practices that—without relying on monumentality or spectacle—restore rooted and significant connections, traditions, and memories within their communities.

EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE HUSTLE: FORMULATION AND FOUNDATION OF A THEORETICAL-POLITICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL CATEGORY

This paper systematizes and discusses the “epistemology of the corre”, a theoretical-political and epistemological category formulated and systematized by Jonas de Souza Gonsalgo in his doctoral thesis “Hell Is Also Pedagogical: Necropolitics, Rap, and the Epistemology of the hustle at the Crossroads of Knowledge”, defended in the Graduate Program in Education at PUC Minas in 2026. The paper derives from the thesis and draws exclusively on the theoretical references used therein. Its purpose is to delimit the concept, explain its foundations, and examine its contributions to education. The underlying research adopted a qualitative, interpretive, and critical approach, using content analysis of three songs from Racionais MC's album “Sobrevivendo no Inferno”, articulated with the perspective of art as confrontation. The discussion shows that the “epistemology of the corre”, cannot be reduced to survival or resistance, as it constitutes a situated way of producing, organizing, validating, and transmitting knowledge forged through the historical experience of Black populations living in urban peripheries. Body, territory, urgency, orality, memory, collectivity, and the reinvention of life constitute its structure. The article concludes that the concept recognizes rap as a legitimate epistemic practice and provides foundations for curriculum decolonization, the recognition of students as epistemic subjects, and the strengthening of antiracist educational practices.

Theorising architectural practice as research: epistemic knowledge production in contemporary Indian architecture

This paper theorises contemporary architectural practice in India as a form of research and epistemic inquiry, arguing that practice is a mode of knowledge production rather than merely applied professional execution. It examines the knowledge-generating capacities of architectural practice amid India’s socio-cultural, environmental and technological transitions. Using a triangulated methodology that combines empirical inquiry, stakeholder narratives, and typological analysis across more than 300 architectural firms, the study examines how knowledge is generated, negotiated and operationalised within practice. The typological data were collected using both open-ended and closed-ended questionnaires. The study shows how architects, by mediating among diverse actors, values and constraints, co-create knowledge. It reveals the mechanisms by which contemporary practice generates both explicit and tacit knowledge in response to change, and repositions practice not as an application of academic theory or mere technical execution, but as an epistemic domain in its own right. It further highlights that the epistemic character of architectural practice is embedded in the project and process, as well as in innovations and in the knowledge of architects and other stakeholders. The paper contributes to architectural epistemology, urging a realignment of educational and institutional frameworks to recognise and integrate this knowledge into academia. We decode the method and nature of the knowledge produced within contemporary Indian architectural practice. By theorising architectural practice as a form of research-in-action, the paper contributes to ongoing debates on architectural epistemology and practice-led research, particularly in the Global South, where professional knowledge remains under-theorised.

Invisible Paradigms: A Critical Realist Analysis of Ontological, Epistemological, and Axiological Positioning in Three Engineering Education Research Journals

Engineering education research (EER) draws on a wide range of philosophical traditions, yet the ontological, epistemological, and axiological (OEA) commitments that shape how knowledge is produced are rarely made explicit in published work. This study investigated the prevalence and nature of OEA positioning across a purposive sample of 54 papers published in 2024 in three Q1 engineering education journals: the Journal of Engineering Education, the European Journal of Engineering Education, and the Australasian Journal of Engineering Education. Using critical realism as a metatheoretical framework, we developed an OEA coding instrument and applied it through an AI-assisted abductive coding process, assigning ontological, epistemological, and two-level axiological codes to each paper and assessing their internal coherence. The overwhelming majority of papers carry implicit rather than declared OEA commitments, a pattern consistent across journals and methodologies. The field is genuinely philosophically plural, with ontological positions ranging from naïve realism to social constructionism and critical realism, but the lack of clarity in this space potentially has consequences for knowledge transfer to practice, cumulative knowledge-building, and the coherence of individual studies.

Technology as Interior: A Civilizational Epistemology of Technological Becoming

FABRIC FIRST, LANGUAGE LAST? REFRAMING FASHION’S EPISTEMIC INFRASTRUCTURES THROUGH MATERIAL INTELLIGENCE