Vitruvio
International 
journal of 
Architecture 
Technology and 
Sustainability
Volume 3 Is 1

VII

EDITORIAL

ARCHITECTURAL TECHNOLOGIES, FORMS OF 
CULTURE AND CREATIVITY THAT EMERGE AND 
EVOLVE

An approach to architectural technology from different 
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dynamism, twists and turns, of the very sense of 
technology and sustainability and their importance 
in the discourse. Architecture has to deal with certain 
cultures, with societies inhabiting a space, with their 
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the engineered element, its materials and its adherence 
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between the society and the architectonic object, 
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multidisciplinary approach. An analysis that helps us 
understand the polyhedral shape of the matter.
In this volume, there are quite different approaches to 
architectural technology and sustainability. From the 
perspective of Spatial Analysis there are approaches to 
cultural landscapes and monuments including digital 
technologies for documenting heritage assets and 
their social interaction. In the realm of Transformation 
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management; contributions that inform adaptation, 
reuse and regeneration of buildings and districts.
All of the approaches, the vernacular, the monumental 
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forms of culture and creativity that emerge and evolve 
from ‘conscious’ and ‘unconscious’ simulations in their 
making. These creations and transformations are not 
incidental, they emerge from social practices which 
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their environment. This calls for architectural objects 
that can be connected to multiple alterities and favour 
new territories for adaptation and re-creation.
Therefore, this editorial critically explores the ways in 
which built environments come into being and how 
they change along the way through justifying the 
need for processual questions on objects and habitats. 
Technology and sustainability are approached not 

just as a quality inherent to an object but as a quality 
inherent to a living space with a rich potential for 
connecting and readapting past qualities towards 
future. 
The discourse aims to explain the evolving concepts of 
technology and sustainability as key roles in analyzing 
behaviours, expressions and adaptations as causes of 
idiosyncratic innovation and experimentation in the 
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urban contexts. The papers provided in this number 
offer options to comprehend contemporary ‘conscious’ 
and ‘unconscious’ constructions and reconstructions, 
although they are subject to the hidden structuring of 
the different contexts and timeframe.  
In any case, technology is intrinsically related to 
creativity and quality and they have priority, as was once 
pointed out when referring to the legacy of the past. 
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distinctiveness of every technicality in a given context. 
The distinctiveness tend to be settled when it is viewed 
from a future tense, nonetheless in that distinctiveness 
values are rarely represented and perceived as 
absolute. It happens because representation and 
perception allow alternative interpretations that 
depend on contextualization. Thus, the prioritization of 
creativity and quality is fully dependent on the cultural 
contexts where the architectonic technicality is created 
and eventually re-created. 
For that reason, a wide view to cultural heritage, music, 
painting, craftsmanship may well explain intermediate 
processes where static and dynamic authentic objects 
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to understand that objects and places are constantly 
re-engineered not only technically but societally. They 
are the result of progression, adaptation and new 
interpretations - new approaches where facts –the 
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evolving technology- can change. 

https://doi.org/10.4995/vitruvio-ijats.2018.10444



VIII

Traditional technologies in which evolving decay and 
unsustainable maintenance perform the role of this heritage 
for the future.



Vitruvio
International 
journal of 
Architecture 
Technology and 
Sustainability
Volume 3 Is 1

IX

That is why VITRUVIO journal seeks to establish new 
paradigms in order to comprehend alternative and 
polyhedral views on the reuse and reinterpretation 
of architectural technology just because it is entirely 
affected by dynamic socio-cultural processes of decay, 
maintenance, abandon and reconstruction.
Finally, I will pose a remark on what has been a 
cornerstone in my professional career. As Senior 
Lecturer, I understand that a challenge exists on 
assuming the need for a multidisciplinary education 
where architects, technicians and engineers merge 
with geographers, sociologists and philosophers 
looking for new insights. Therefore, there is a need for 
not to isolate concepts such as Heritage, Historic Built 
Environments, Smart Built Environments, Landscape, 
Buildings, Uses, Users, Techniques, Materials, 
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new university degrees at adapting and understanding 
technologies, social demands, tradition, environment 
and globalization. There is a need to apply 
multidisciplinary knowledge and multidisciplinary 
science in architectural technology.

Juan Antonio García-Esparza