About the Journal

Estoa is an open-access scientific journal, published by the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Cuenca. Indexed in Scopus since 2023, the journal receives original and unpublished academic contributions from authors around the world. It is a biannual, open-access journal that follows a double-blind peer review process, ensuring an objective, impartial, and transparent evaluation, which allows the publication to be included in international databases, repositories, and indexing systems.

The journal’s main objective is to disseminate knowledge generated in the fields of (i) architectural theory and design, (ii) technologies and construction, (iii) city and territory, and (iv) conservation of built cultural heritage and landscape. In other words, it covers all areas ranging from architecture to urban studies. Estoa accepts articles derived from original and unpublished research, in both Spanish and English. It is aimed at researchers, academics, and professionals within the journal’s areas of specialization.

Is published in electronic version (e-ISSN: 1390-9274), and each article is identified with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier).

Estoa. Journal of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of University of Cuenca, maintains an open call for articles on a permanent basis. The editorial process begins once the author has sent the required documents in the requested format through its digital content manager Open Journal Systems, through the following link: https://estoa.ucuenca.edu.ec. Authors must have previously registered and must include their ORCID identifier. If they do not have this personal identifier, they can obtain it at http://orcid.org. Original manuscripts sent by e-mail or any other interface will not be accepted.

All papers must be original, the product of completed or ongoing research and subject to the IMRaD method (Introduction - Methods - Results and Discussion). We welcome original research papers, review papers (critical reviews), case studies and methodological papers. Papers should have a minimum length of 5000 words and a maximum of 7000 words, including notes, abstract, bibliography and illustrative elements.

Original Research Article: a scientific article that presents the most recent findings of a research project in detail. These may be partial or final results obtained from research projects.

Review Article (critical review): a scientific article that systematizes the state of the art on a topic within the scope of the journal in order to place certain variables under discussion and account for their development.

Case Study: a scientific article that describes the observed results of a particular case study.

Methodological Article: a scientific article in which new methodologies, discussions or validations (critical analysis), and extensions or modifications of existing methods are proposed.

The original documents received, after passing the relevance assessment, are sent to external peer review. The editorial team assigns the blind peer reviewers, who are specialists in the field, from a constantly updated bank of evaluators, which is composed of international researchers with a PhD degree.

The evaluation by the double-blind system is a process in which the anonymity of reviewers (peers) and authors is preserved. This process determines whether the content of the article is of sufficient quality to be published. The result contemplates the following possibilities: approved for publication, approved with request for corrections, rejection of the manuscript. In the event that the reviewer assigned by the editor cannot perform the evaluation, a reviewer may be suggested and may be considered as long as he/she complies with the Policy on criteria for the identification, selection, evaluation, debugging and updating of the Estoa journal's peer database.

All the steps mentioned above may be followed by the author after entering the manuscript in the Open Journal Systems, operated by the journal. The reviewers' opinion is not subject to appeal. Estoa does not charge article processing charges (APCs) to authors.

Estoa journal publishes two issues per year, on a biannual basis, corresponding to the periods January–June and July–December. Since April 2026, it has adopted a continuous publication model. This allows for the immediate dissemination of articles once they have successfully completed the editorial process, enhancing the timeliness, visibility, and circulation of scientific knowledge.

Open Policy

Estoa. Journal of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of University of Cuenca, is an open access serial publication completely free for all users. The editorial team manages the entry of its content in catalogs, digital repositories and databases, in order to reuse and self-archive their articles, following the Digital Preservation Policy of scientific e-journals of the University of Cuenca. For this reason, Estoa is included in DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journal) and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Estoa reserves only the rights to publish the documents.

Copyright

Documents published in Estoa are subject to the following conditions.

The University of Cuenca, as the publishing entity, reserves the copyright of the published documents, and at the same time, favors their reuse via the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 license, so that their copying, use, dissemination, transmission and public exhibition is possible, provided that:
1. Authorship and original sources are cited (name of publication, publisher, URL and DOI).
2. Not be used for commercial or for-profit purposes.
3. Reference is made to the validity and details of this Creative Commons license.

The full text, metadata and citations of articles can be tracked and accessed with permission. Our open social policy also allows the readability of the archives and their metadata, enabling interoperability under the open data and open source OAI-PMH protocol. The archives, both of the complete publications and their segmentation by articles, are available in PDF and XML format.

Each article published by Estoa has a Digital Object Identifier (DOI).

In relation to self-archiving, authors are allowed to reuse published articles. That is, the post-print can be archived as long as it is not for commercial purposes, and can be deposited in thematic or institutional repositories.

Readers' Rights

The contents of Estoa are presented in open format and readers are entitled to access them free of charge from the moment of publication. The journal does not charge the reader.