María Paz, Cid-Alarcón (1988, Cañete, Chile) is an architect (2016) and holds a master’s degree in Architectural and Urban Heritage (2025) from the University of Bío-Bío in southern Chile. She also holds a diploma in Architecture and Universal Accessibility (2023) from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
The line of research developed in her Master’s thesis delves into post-industrial transformation processes through the analysis of adaptive reuse and its social value, applied to the case of buildings constructed by the coal industry in the mining town of Lota, in southern Chile. Her thesis is part of the FONDECYT Initiation Project code 11230309 “Memories of urban and cultural transformations of deindustrialization in the global north and south: A comparative study of the southern coal basin, Chile, and the Ruhr region, Germany” directed by Dr. María Esperanza Rock.
Her research interests include oral history linked to the transformations of industrial buildings and landscapes, as well as accessibility in architecture and heritage contexts. During her professional career, she has collaborated on projects related to tangible and intangible cultural heritage, accessible architecture, the production of scientific architecture journals, and higher education management, in addition to having been a union leader between 2021 and 2023.
She is part of the Nudisur collaboration network as a researcher.
Project Statement:
Post-industrial adaptive reuse and social value: case study installation of CFT Lota- Arauco in buildings of the former ENACAR (National Coal Company). Lota Alto, Biobío Region, Chile.
The research studies the social value of adaptive reuse applied to the case study of the installation of the Lota Arauco Technical Training Center (Lota, Chile) in heritage buildings that were part of the urban equipment built by the National Coal Company (ENACAR), whose operation closed in 1997, after more than a century of history. The set of industrial heritage architecture built between the 1930s and 1940s in Lota Alto, which is addressed as a case study, played a role in the urban life of different generations during its original use. It served social uses such as supply, payment of salaries, administrative procedures, leisure and social life. These functions became obsolete 27 years ago and have since been replaced by academic and community activities. The analysis is approached with methods and tools that seek to establish interdisciplinary bridges between architecture and social sciences. Its development is ascribed to the model of Collaborative Research Action (Rock, 2024) applied in the ANID FONDECYT research project to which this study is attached. This model proposes that research should be collaborative and capable of enabling the co-design of research, overcoming the extractivist attitude towards a research context. This in-depth description of the architectural transformation and its social value is considered fundamental for learning about the future of heritage reuse in a postindustrial context in southern Chile. It is a call for reflection on the resilience of industrial cities and the urgency of foreseeing plans that, learning from what was experienced in the coal zone, allow for the continuity of the functioning and history of territories in contexts of change.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0362-9889
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mapcid/
https://www.instagram.com/mapcid/
