Landscape and Architecture: Yawanawá Design Lessons from the Brazilian Amazon Forest

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to observe the spatial design practices of the Yawanawá indigenous population that inhabits the Rio Gregorio Indigenous Land, located in the Brazilian Amazon Forest. In collaboration with this community, the intention is to reflect on approaches that can enrich the research of their spatial knowledge, thereby contributing to the consolidation of Amerindian knowledge in the academic field of architecture and design. The participant observation methodology allowed an immersion into Yawanawá narratives that rescue their ancestral role in the architectural and landscape configuration of the territory. Through elaborating a photographic visual investigation, it is sought to expand voices and meanings in strata of coexisting times, articulating the images to the Amerindian architectural conceptions that survived colonial abuse. In the conclusions, the lessons that the Yawanawá express and manifest are highlighted when building spaces of resistance in a poetic, symbolic, and daily way where the urban power structures constructed and/or that cross their territory were and are re-signified to test other ways of living in the forest.