Editorial

Abstract

I have been given the great honor of writing this Editorial, specifically for volume 10, the second issue of 2020 of the Journal, Habitat Sustentable. This is happening just as it begins its second decade and forms part of the SCOPUS index, a very important achievement for a scientific journal from the Chilean and Ibero-American sphere, one that is unique in addressing the specific topics of sustainability in architecture and the built environment. A great reason for feeling proud is the competent work that the UBB’s Faculty of Architecture HS editorial team, involved in this process, has done up until now, where undoubtedly the community of authors, revisors and readers, who make the journal’s sustainability over time possible, also play an extremely important role. From this bench, then, and with this new motivation, we invite you all to continue sending your works to HS.

The Editor responsible for HS, Claudia Muñoz PhD, started the last issue, talking about the pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 and wrote “on day 104 of the lockdown in Chile…”. Today, it has been around 270 days since the virus’ arrival in our country, the uncertainty continues and with it the tiredness, we have all accumulated with this experience, is added, which in many cases has been extremely traumatic. I cannot leave it out, given the importance and urgency scientific research of excellence in the world has garnered, and the role that, as a result, researchers and the publishing of their work play when it comes to contributing to our societies and our planet, ultimately, to save lives and positively affect the quality of life of all the species that live on Earth.

The generation of knowledge through scientific research is one that will contribute to achieving that so yearned and necessary freedom, that will let us live without fear and in a more sustainable, healthy, fair and dignified habitat for one and all. Likewise, in the academic setting, it is overwhelming to see the ploriferation of studies, reports, analyses, prospective research, surveys, etc., about what the world can entail, with respect to the fragility of our existence as a human species and the vulnerable system of life that we have developed as a society. However, beginning this new decade, having finished this year with the great pandemic we are experiencing, imposes today, more than ever, the great challenge of developing research work together, collaborating with players from the public, productive and academic sectors, hopefully more connected with the reality we live in.

This is how, from the editorial approach of HS, it is paramount to continue generating scientific-technological contributions towards the sustainability of the built environment, such as those from Argentina, Spain and Chile, in the articles here presented, where green facades or ventilated facades are seen, once more, corroborated as strategies that contribute towards improving the living conditions of occupants; or where it is likewise shown, that the ancestral and sustainable use of the land in its “earth block” version, continues being a valid construction material, technologically perfectible and one worthy of innovating starting from its qualities. To these the revision and reflection about what is on the horizon are added, “Zero Energy Buildings”, and about the energy transition required to adapt to the climatic and social changes we sense daily, where it is so timely to look back at topics like the prefabrication of the past, to help us look towards the future. 

Finally, looking at that horizon, I would like to thank each member of this tremendous editorial team of HS, without exception.