In context of the promotion of her new book Urban Warfare: Housing under the Empire of Finance, we had the honour to talk one-on-one with Brazilian author Raquel Rolnik. As architect and urban planner, she has been deeply involved in policies concerning social housing for several decades. During 2008-2014 she was the UN special reporter on the Right to Adequate Housing. We asked her about her drive, her ideals, and the current global challenges the social housing sector is facing.

As human beings, words form an integral part of who we are and reflect us as sentient beings. When we call for action and advocate that it triumphs over words, it fuels our impulse for showmanship and display. In the case of design, talk is certainly not cheap. The repercussions of design without extended period of dialogue often to lead to dire results, evident in many design case studies.

Dialogue lies at the core of any republic; it is not a coincidence that congress chambers, where highly sophisticated forms of dialogue take place, are constantly depicted and glorified by states that represent themselves as open and inclusive, even if they are not.