Collective Agency: The Architectural Collective as an Emerging Model for Education and Practice in Brazil.

This article will interrogate the common and differential factors that drive the recent collective movements occurring in Brazil, with a particular focus on the collectives that have formed within universities. Occupying a liminal space between education and professional practice, students at different stages of qualification are beginning to challenge the conventions of the architectural office through a radical appropriation of the design process. In doing so they conflate an interest in a social and political agenda with participatory design methods that broaden the understanding and value of architectural production. The intentions and scale of the collective movement will be used to problematize issues of authorship, collaboration, and participation while considering the collectives' transgressive potential to reconceptualise new roles for architects in a country currently experiencing large scale political and economic change.