Transformations of Shuar Architectures and Agroecologies

Emerging visions of the pre-Colonial Western Hemisphere that diverge from hegemonic narratives offer important lessons on urban ecology that can contribute to reimagine the city of the future, as designers seek for principles that may guide contemporary urban (design) culture towards re-establishing a cyclical and renewable relationship with the environment. 

Join this conversation with Ana María Durán Calisto, an architect, designer, planner, and scholar from Quito, Ecuador; María Clara Sharupi Jua, a leader and expert in managing social, cultural, and educational projects, with an emphasis on human rights and interculturality; and with Brent Kokonya, an architectural designer and artist hailing from Nairobi, Kenya.

The rich cultural heritage of Amazonian First Nations, whose sophisticated systems of inhabitation are being dismantled in the name of development and by systems of national planning which often fail to acknowledge their value and existence. The dialogue will dissect the regional agroecological constellations of their deep past as depicted by drawings done by architecture students Ana Maria has taught and reinterpreted through weaving and other forms of craftwork by Amazonian First Nations like the Waorani.

At the same time, this discussion will attempt to unpack the ways in which a people with such deep cultural links reconcile their heritage in contemporary urban set ups removed so far from home citing the Ecuadorian community in New Haven, Connecticut. Their rich past can fertilize current imaginaries of the urban and what it means to be urban in a tropical rainforest and what it means to be traditional in a concrete jungle.

Speakers:
Ana María Durán Calisto, Co-Principal, Estudio A0
María Clara Sharupi Jua, Poet and Cultural Leader

Moderator:
Brent Kokonya, Architectural Designer and Artist

About the Speakers:
Ana María Durán Calisto is an architect, designer, planner and scholar from Quito, Ecuador.  She is the Daniel Rose (1951) Visiting Assistant Professor at Yale University’s School of Architecture. Together with her husband, Jaskran Kalirai, they co-founded Estudio A0, an award-winning practice responsible for the design of multiscalar, community-based projects. Some of their projects include QPH obtained the first LEED Gold certification in continental Ecuador. Some of their exhibitions include Surfacing—The Civilised Agroecological Forests of Amazonia, co-created with Omere which was showcased at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia and will be presented at the Centro Cultural Metropolitano of Quito in 2026.

Durán Calisto is a 2010-2011 Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design for her proposal to weave a South American network devoted to critically and creatively addressing the infrastructural integration of South America. She is a member of the Science Panel for the Amazon, convened by SDSN & the UN. She co-authored its report´s chapter on urbanization. In 2015, she was the academic advisor to the Ecuadorian Minister on Housing and Urban Development for the UN Conference Habitat III. She collaborates with CAF’s program on BiodiverCities, and with the IDB on its BioCities program for Brazil. She is the 2022 recipient of the Mark Cousins Theory Award, a recipient of the 2024 Graham Foundation grant, and the Yale University Public Voices Fellowship.

Durán Calisto has taught research seminars and design studios at the FADA of Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Harvard University’s GSD, Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture, Columbia University’s GSAPP, the University of Michigan Taubman College, the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, the Architecture School of Universidad Católica de Temuco, and UCLA´s Institute for the Environment and Sustainability.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from the School of Liberal Arts at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) and a master's degree in Architecture the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the urban planning department at UCLA.

María Clara Sharupi Jua is is a professional with extensive experience in managing social, cultural, and educational projects, with an emphasis on human rights and interculturality. Her expertise in intercultural health was consolidated with her leadership of the Intercultural Health Pilot Project "I Decide, I Reaffirm My Life for My Body and My Health" (January–July 2024), in partnership with the BIENSUR Regional Program of the Sustainable Science Institute (SSI). Under her leadership, the project promoted access to healthcare from an integrative perspective, combining ancestral knowledge and contemporary medicine, strengthening community autonomy, and fostering education on sexual and reproductive rights for men and women of different communities and nationalities in urban settings.

She writes poetry in Shuar, her native language, while simultaneously translating it into Spanish with the goal of attracting a wider readership. She also modifies the writing system of her ancestral language, adapting it to the Latin alphabet. Sharupi Jua is a translator and a presenter in both Shuar and Spanish on radio and TV. She served on the translation team that edited the official Shuar translation of the Ecuadorian Constitution. The poetry Sharupi Jua writes is meant to serve as a reflection of the forest and to share her ancestral stories, as well as the stories of her community today. She is a co-author of the book Amanece en nuestras vidas, and the book of poetry Tarimiat, written in Shuar, Spanish, and English.

She was recognized by the Andean Community for her work to defend and preserve the Shuar language through her poetry. In 2023, her work was included in the anthology Daughters of Latin America: An International Anthology of Writing by Latine Women. She then attended Politecnica Salesiana University, where she studied electrical engineering.

Brent Kokonya is an artist hailing from Nairobi, Kenya. He pursued his bachelor’s in architecture at Jomo Kenyatta University in Kenya, with a brief stint at TU Delft. He is a recipient of the 2020 Diana Award. He holds a post-professional master’s degree in architecture from Yale University. As an Ulli Scharnberg scholar, he graduated from Yale in 2024 with the David M. Schwarz Traveling Fellowship Award for his study of paratransit landscapes in Kenya and Paraguay. 

He also has over 3 and a half years of work experience having worked on projects based in Kenya, South Sudan, Rwanda and the United States spanning master planning, healthcare, commercial, cultural and residential design. He has worked at Studio Mehta Architecture and Planning Systems Services both in Nairobi, Kenya and Hart Howerton in New York. He currently works as an architectural designer and junior medical planner at NBBJ in New York City.


This event is part of the Indigenous Society of Architecture, Planning, and Design's ‘Thinking/Being/Designing for the Collective’ series, developed in collaboration with the Center for Architecture. Drawing inspiration from Archtober 2025’s theme of “Shared Spaces,” join ISAPD to imagine a world where space and resources are shared responsibly and reciprocally. As we respond to the complex collective experience in 2025: learn Indigenous principles to re-establish a cyclical and renewable relationship with the environment, develop material conditions where communities can unite across separation, reflect on the role that reconciliation plays in rethinking spaces for diplomacy, and focus on design practices and tools where cultural lineages and lived histories intersect. 

If you register for a virtual ticket, you will receive an email with a Zoom link to access the program.