Building and Teaching How to Build: gendered construction know‑How of informal spatial practices in Brazil.

27th April 2026 5pm BST University of Liverpool School of Architecture, New Reilly Room

Professor Mariana Moura, University of Antwerp

Open Event

In Brazil, the presence of women in self-building contexts has become more prominent in recent years. In favelas and ocupações urbanas (urban squatting settlements), women take part in mutirões (collective building work), undertake administrative tasks and assume leadership roles in the housing movement. Yet, their involvement in the actual construction is often dependent on a new learning process. Whether through the technical assistance of architects or in informal, community-led efforts, building requires the acquisition of new skills.

In many traditional communities, however, the opposite can be observed. Women involved in self-building in such contexts, and particularly in building with natural materials (so-called vernacular architecture), are knowledgeable agents responsible for sharing and maintaining construction know-how across generations.

This presentation shares and discusses some of this gendered construction know-how in three diverse communities in Brazil – Indigenous, quilombola (maroons)  and urban – presenting, in their own words, how and why a gendered construction know-how has been perpetuated or lost over time. Their oral testimonies highlight a long tradition of specific building techniques developed across different times and places. Through these stories, my research seeks to challenge the historical notion of women’s absence from building sites and to highlight how a feminist and decolonial interpretation of diverse construction practices can reveal neglected aspects of gender relations in the production of space, and its own power dynamics around knowledge, skills and agency.

Mariana Moura

Mariana Moura is Professor of Architecture for Societal Transitions at the University of Antwerp’s Faculty of Design Sciences. Her research focuses on informal and self-organised spatial practices, drawing from decolonial and feminist theories. She was an MSCA postdoctoral fellow at the University of Antwerp (2024-2025) and a postdoctoral researcher in the Translating Ferro / Transforming Knowledges project (2021-2024), where she co-edited Design and the Building Site (Mack, 2025) and Architecture from Below (Mack, 2024). Since 2023, she has coordinated the Her Know How group, a network of scholars and practitioners interested in gendered aspects of architectural production and women’s historical contributions to architecture and construction.