Mies van der Rohe said that architecture was “the will of an era translated into space.” He saw architecture as “the most faithful guardian of the spirit of the times because it is objective and not affected by individualism or personal fantasies.”
No project goes from the drawing board to reality if it does not first legitimize its quality of being feasible. It is in this transit that the circumstances and the work of the engineers define the real face of the work to be erected. On the other hand, urban planning, that set of disciplines that are responsible for the study of human settlements for their diagnosis, understanding, and intervention becomes the faithful guardian of the spirit of the times that Van der Rohe spoke of, giving the definitive imprint to the construction site.
This process is deeply interdisciplinary. It develops on the border between several pre-established disciplines, taking from them methods, concepts, and paradigms, which generate an epistemic synthesis that has shown to have stability over time.1
This issue of the INTER DISCIPLINA journal is dedicated, as its guest editor Dr. Juan Carlos Seck-Tuoh-Mora comments, to showing examples of the daily work of research carried out in the Academic Area of Engineering and Architecture, belonging to the Institute of Basic Sciences and Engineering from the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo. Also, an interview with Dr. Liliana Guadalupe Lizárraga Mendiola is conducted, she’s a prominent specialist in the areas of hydrology, development of sustainable urban systems, and low-impact technologies.
This issue also includes seven works in the Independent Communications section and five books reviews, one of them with a topic related to the dossier.
[2] Mansilla, R. 2023. “Acerca del concepto de interdisciplina”, capítulo en el libro De qué hablamos cuando hablamos de interdisciplina, México: UNAM, 21.