informa has been a printed platform for the dissemination of work by professors at the University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture, and for a number of local and international contributors. Since 2001, informa has focused on publishing essays and projects that address, analyze, or reflect on history, design, technology, urbanism, and teaching. The recognition it has received throughout the years and the contributions made to architectural debates, particularly within Latin America, have been an encouragement to expand informa’s discussions.

Today, seeking to reaffirm its relevance in this second generation, the Editorial Board retains informa’s original foundations while simultaneously aiming to broaden its outlook by reconceptualizing the publication into a peer-reviewed journal. In collaborative spirit, responding to the digital realities of the twenty-first century and connecting the journal to a wider audience, informa is conceived as an open-access, online publication. In this way, the journal becomes a vehicle to discuss, teach, learn, and disseminate from within the Caribbean, but in forthright dialogue with a globalized society. This outward projection produces knowledge about architecture and cities which can ultimately inform policies, shift paradigms, and lead to the creation of spaces that are just, inclusive, and democratic. Each issue of informa has, at its core, the publication of research papers. It also consists of any combination of commissioned essays, invited projects, reviews (books, articles and built work), and interviews. It publishes academically rigorous projects, research, and written works that elucidate on relevant and timely topics within contemporary architectural discourse.

Subjects covered include writings about individual architectural designers, historians, and theorists; theoretical texts; spatial theory; architectural history; design theory; urbanism; spatial practices and cultures; interdisciplinary collaborations; place-based art and performance; emerging currents and patterns; pedagogy; visual culture; technology; sustainability; and emerging forms of place-based cultures. To compliment these multi-perspective approaches, we welcome topics that include: citizenship, community, user-participation, dynamic and uncon- ventional research methodologies, ethics, time and ephemerality, history and heritage, structural and material innovations, everyday life, and the politics of space.

Editorial Policy

The journal is published once a year. Material submitted toinforma through our call for papers is subject to peer review using the ‘double-blind’ refereeing process. Submissions should follow the rules and guidelines established by the Chicago Manual of Style. informa will consider articles written in Spanish and English that fall within the categories described in the journal’s aims and scope. All manuscripts are subject to initial appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief, and, if found suitable for further consideration, will then be peer reviewed by independent, anonymous, and expert referees from outside of the University of Puerto Rico. informa considers submissions on the conditions that:

1. The manuscript adheres to the journal’s formal and stylistic rules and guidelines, as specified by the Editorial Board on the website.
2. The manuscript is framed within architectural design, history, or theory categories, and includes themes that fall within the journal’s scope.
3. The manuscript must be the author’s original work.
4. The manuscript must be clearly structured, well argued, and its objectives must be addressed in a coherent manner.
5. The manuscript does not duplicate any other previously published work, including the author’s previously published work.
6. The manuscript is not currently under consideration for peer review, accepted for publication, or published elsewhere.

Submission Guidelines

Authors submitting manuscripts to informa must do so via email to: in.forma@upr.edu

As a bilingual journal, commissioned texts and submitted manuscripts will be published in either Spanish or English, in accordance to the language they were originally written in. Abstracts and keywords will be published in both Spanish and English. Authors must submit their abstract and keywords in both languages. In addition to abiding by the journal’s Editorial Policy, the following formal and thematic specifications must be met for articles to be published in informa:

1. The manuscript contains no abusive, defamatory, libelous, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal material.
2. Each manuscript’s first page must include a full title and subtitle, if any.
3. For the purposes of blind refereeing, the full name of each author with current affiliation, full contact details, and short biographical note (listing affiliation, academic merits, and relevant publications) should be sent as a separate document and not included in the manuscript itself.
4. The second page of the manuscript must include an abstract of 150–200 words along with a minimum of 5 and maximum of 10 keywords.
5. For research-based manuscripts, the target word count is 4,000–8,000 words.
6. For review-based manuscripts (books or creative work), the word count should not exceed 1,000 words.
7. Submissions must be formatted according to the latest Chicago Manual of Style.
8. The manuscript must be clearly organized, with a logical hierarchy of headings and subheadings, and specifying images with figure numbers.
9. Quotations exceeding 40 words must be indented.
10. Endnotes should be signaled by superscript numbers in the main text and listed at the end of the text before the references.
11. All submissions must be sent as both Word and PDF documents.
12. Each author is responsible for obtaining the necessary permissions to reproduce any copyrighted material, including images.
13. Authors should include a separate statement confirming that all authors have agreed to the submission and that the article is not currently being considered for publication by any other print or electronic journal.

Due to the broad range of subject matter, authors are also encouraged to separately supply the names of one or more potential referees. Please include those in a “Comments to the editor” document, and if possible, include potential referees’ email addresses.

Access Policy

informa is available online. Our ISSN is 2637–7950. Readers will be able to access, download, print, and copy the articles, as well as share the journal’s links freely. Issues of informa cannot be published, sold, or made available, partially or completely, in other digital or physical platforms that are not the journal’s own.

Ethic’s Code

informa adopts the practices and statements of the Committee on Publication Ethics: COPE. The Editorial Board acknowledges this code of ethics and the submitted manuscripts must conform to it.

Plagierism

The Editorial Board will liase with the School of Architecture’s librarians to examine received manuscripts for plagiarism, as part of the screening process carried out when manuscripts are submitted por publishing. Online tools for the detection of plagiarism will be used. If proof of plagiarism is found, the manuscript will be rejected immediately, and the Editorial Board will communicate with the author for an explanation and the amendment of the plagiarized content. If the author does not respond within a reasonable length of time or does not make the necessary adjustments, they will not be able to submit manuscripts to informa por a period of five (5) years. If the Editorial Board has reason to believe that the manuscript was not drafted or researched in an ethical manner, the journal’s implemented code of ethics (Committee on Publication Ethics [Code of Conduct and Best Practices Guidelines for Journals Editors]) will be reviewed and act accordingly.

Data Conservation

Each issue of informa is stored and preserved digitally on the Google Drive cloud, on the Portal of Academic Journals of the University of Puerto Rico server, the University of Puerto Rico Institutional Repository, and several memory devices and external hard drives.