Number 21

Summer 2022

Editorial

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 20

Winter 2021

Editorial

This EP – Estudo Prévio issue is the number TWENTY. It is a very special issue, for several reasons. First of all, the collaboration of the architect João Caria Lopes, co-director and founder of the magazine, to whom Estudo Prévio owes a lot and is grateful, ceases in this edition. Maintaining a project like this during its first ten years of existence implied a lot of persistence and never stop believing that it is worth investing in its quality and continuity. Thank you, João, and best of luck for ongoing and future projects! EP – Estudo Prévio now welcomes with great pleasure and enthusiasm in our team the architects João Quintela, as co-director, and Rodrigo Lino Gaspar, in the editorial production.

We celebrated the fact that we reached number 20 by inviting the architects Pedro Baía and Ricardo Carvalho to coordinate a historical dossier. This dossier is composed by a selection of fundamental texts in Portuguese architecture, written in the last few decades, and long out of print or very difficult to find today. Our purpose it to give these texts a new life, both in Portuguese and English. For this issue, we interviewed the architectural historian Tim Benton. We believe that the conversation we had with was the best way to open this issue, as it opens up innovative perspectives and analyses. Finally, the two reviews, by the architects Miguel Judas and Rodrigo Lino Gaspar, revisit a book and a plan which are fundamental for understanding contemporary Portuguese architecture, starting from what was published, claimed and designed in the years of the dictatorship.

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 19

Summer 2021

Editorial

The publication of the #19 issue of the EP – Estudos Prévio magazine resumes, even in a pandemic context, a tradition that has been a constant in the magazine, the thematic dossiers. In this issue, we invited the architect Paulo Moreira, PhD in Architecture, with research on the Informal City, in the European and African context, who organized a dossier that starts with a biographical interview with the architect and urban planner Isabel Raposo and then presents us with research perspectives in contexts distinct territories, Angola and Cape Verde, ending with a review of a remarkable book about the reality of the Brazilian favela. As usual, the magazine includes, in text and audio, an interview with an architect, this time with the sculptor and professor Carlos Nogueira, an interview that we publish with special pleasure, since professor Carlos Nogueira was, for many years, Professor in the 1st year of the Autonomous Architecture course, having contributed in an unforgettable way – with his classes full of art and poetry – to the training of hundreds of architects who attended our school.

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 18

Winter 2020

Editorial

The publication of the #18 issue of the EP – Estudos Prévio magazine takes place in the midst of a pandemic, at a time when communication, teaching and professional practices were forced to make a great effort to adapt to different rhythms and to the contingency of confinement and mandatory of working online. In this context, we tried to maintain the premises that defined EP from its inception. When rereading the first editorial we wrote, in 2012, we see that the main theme was the “crisis”. Almost ten years later, we are experiencing a new crisis – this time not just economic, but also sanitary and sociocultural – which has led us to question the models of work organization, cities and consumption, and their relationship with the rural world. In this context, it makes sense, in our opinion, to maintain a double vision: on the one hand, revisiting the authors and projects of the 20th century and contributing to the construction of a thought about the contemporary city, which allows us to build a bridge between the past and the future. This category includes the articles The tenuous line between architecture and sculpture: “The sculpture village” (1987), Frank Gehry and Anthony Caro and On the track of Oscar and the review Nova Oeiras – the Residential Neighborhood Plan. On the other hand, to approach themes that are dedicated to the discussion of future models of territorial and city organization. This is the case of the article Urban Agriculture in Lisbon: a historical reading and a perspective of the future. As usual, the magazine includes, in text and audio, an interview with an architect, this time Egas José Vieira, with whom we talked about his life as a student, teacher and architect, we recall his collaboration with Manuel Graça Dias (1953 -2019), emblematic figure of architecture in Portugal (founder of the Autonomous Architecture course and our first interviewee, at number 00). We ended with Egas José Vieira’s message to architecture students: “It’s a wonderful profession! It is true that it is difficult and it is increasingly difficult to access work, we are more and more, but it is really wonderful, if it were not, I would not be here, after almost forty years, excited, talking about it”.

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 17

Summer 2020

Editorial

In this publication of the number 17 of the magazine EP – Preliminary Study, we inaugurated a new website, which responds to aspirations that we had for some time: a better organization of its content, an update of the experience of those who read and hear it and also to gather the conditions that allow us to aspire to more and better international indexes. In this issue, we had the opportunity to gather articles that are part of ongoing investigations and that allow us to know, with original publications, what each author knows best and the paths he is taking. We thus contribute to discovering better information and new details in history. With this issue, we also continue to continue the editorial project, promoting the sharing and reflection on new knowledge, deepened by our contributors and guests, through the written, spoken word, and also through image narratives, crossing investigations from different locations geographical, professional and thematic areas, in favor of greater openness to new knowledge territories. It is for this purpose that we publish once again, in addition to the usual articles and reviews, a visual essay and a project review. 2020 is undoubtedly a year of change, and the future is uncertain. It is, therefore, with redoubled satisfaction and hope that we make these changes, so that in 2021 we can celebrate the magazine’s 10th anniversary with new projects. See you later!

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 16

Winter 2019

Editorial

With the number #16 of the magazine Pré Prévio, we continue the new cycle that, without abandoning the characteristics of the editorial project – located in the academy, promoting reflection and knowledge sharing through the spoken and written word, crossing knowledge and investigations from different geographical locations and professionals – intends to broaden the scope of the collaborations already established by the magazine, this time we had the opportunity to interview the architect Giorgio Santagostino and we received several articles that address port territories and point to problems and potential of these same territories, now from an urban point of view . In closing, this issue #DEZASSEIS also includes a critical review of the book by Le Corbusier – Aircraft and, taking advantage of the launch of the DAUAL + CEACTUAL book, we finished this number with a review / celebration about the book – Making a school – To build a school Da / Ual20.

Interview

Articles

Theses

Reviews

Number 15

Summer 2019

Editorial

In this issue #15 we publish a series of articles, in the form of Thematic Dossier, which address intervention strategies in and with the community through artistic processes. The texts we publish here are a transposition into the scientific article format of oral presentations made within the scope of the international conference “Art, Materiality and Representation” organized by the Royal Anthropological Institute in collaboration with the British Museum and the Department of Anthropology at SOAS in London . In parallel, even before giving a conference at the UAL Department of Architecture, we invited the architect Pere Buil for an interview, where we share a bit of his academic and professional path – thus continuing the new editorial line that seeks content in territories contiguous to Architecture and UAL. In closing, this issue #QUINZE also includes a critical review of the book Colonial Modern. Aesthetics of the past – Rebellions for the future, made by architect-researcher Paulo Moreira.

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 14

Winter 2018

Editorial

With the number #14 of the magazine Pré Prévio, through an interview with one of the UAL project professors, we keep the option of adding value to the initial editorial project – located in the academy, promoting reflection and knowledge sharing through the spoken and written word, crossing knowledge and research from different geographical and professional locations – extending the scope of the collaborations already established by the magazine over the past 6 years.

In the same sense, we return to the issue with a defined theme, this time the territory of Madeira Island, as a guiding line that serves as a motto for fluctuations between the spoken word, the academic text, the review and the visual essay. We counted to compile this issue with the interview with the architect / professor Rui Mendes, the visual essay by the architect / photographer Duarte Belo, a more extensive article on the Spatial Planning in Madeira by the architect Roberto Rodrigues and finally a review, not a book but of a plan, by Gerbert Verheij.

Some of these contributions, although not completely innovative, seek differentiating approaches, the result of views that, we believe, contribute decisively to broaden current thinking in the face of contemporary territorial issues, which have become more complex in recent decades.

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 13

Summer 2018

Editorial

In this issue, we publish the theoretical component of three master’s dissertations carried out at the Department of Architecture of Autónoma. Selected for their quality and originality, these contributions illustrate how research can inform and be an essential component of the project for students completing their architecture training.

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 12

Winter 2017

Editorial

With the number #12 of the magazine Pré Prévio, we ended the initial editorial project – located in the academy, promoting reflection and knowledge sharing through the spoken and written word, crossing knowledge and research from different geographical and professional locations – expanding the scope of the collaborations already established by the magazine over the past 7 years.

At a time when the debate around scientific research takes on new shapes – namely in view of the numerous indexing requirements, associated with a certain normalization of the transmission of knowledge -, and when the definition of the role of research in architecture intensifies, we consider it fundamental betting on innovative thematic axes and heterogeneous approaches to the various types of knowledge that contribute to thinking about the city and architecture. The fact that the preliminary study is linked to an architecture school with a strong design tradition invites us to publish practical experiences that can contribute to a broader theoretical construction. However, we also cannot abandon more conventional approaches, resulting from decades of scientific thought production.

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 11

Summer 2017

Editorial

With the number #11 of the magazine Pré Prévio, we continue the initial editorial project – located in the academy, promoting reflection and knowledge sharing through the spoken and written word, crossing knowledge and research from different geographical and professional locations – expanding the scope of collaborations established by the magazine over the past 6 years.

At a time when the debate around scientific research takes on new shapes – namely in view of the numerous indexing requirements, associated with a certain normalization of the transmission of knowledge -, and when the definition of the role of research in architecture is intensified, we consider it fundamental betting on innovative thematic axes and heterogeneous approaches to the various types of knowledge that contribute to thinking about the city and architecture. The fact that the preliminary study is linked to an architecture school with a strong design tradition invites us to publish practical experiences that can contribute to a broader theoretical construction. However, we also cannot abandon more conventional approaches, resulting from decades of scientific thought production.

In this sense, we composed a heterogeneous number, starting with an interview with landscape architect João Gomes da Silva, also a professor at UAL, and broadened the spectrum of the themes covered, with a set of articles about the city of Lisbon, and many others based on theses university, on different themes such as recent architecture in Turkey or the column as an architectural element. We were also able to count on two critical reviews about books that focus on the city of Lisbon: “The internationalization of Lisbon – paradiplomacy of a city” and a classic, “The book of Lisbon”, which makes this issue a reflection of the growing interest in city ​​we inhabit, at a specific time of its social, tourist and economic growth.

Interview

Articles

Theses

Reviews

Number 10

Winter 2016

Editorial

With the number #10 of the magazine Pré Prévio, we continue a new cycle that, without abandoning the characteristics of the editorial project – located in the academy, promoting reflection and knowledge sharing through the spoken and written word, crossing knowledge and investigations from different locations geographic and professional – intends to broaden the scope of the collaborations already established by the magazine.

At a time when the debate around scientific research takes on new shapes – namely in view of the numerous indexing requirements, associated with a certain normalization of the transmission of knowledge -, and when the definition of the role of research in architecture is intensified, we consider it fundamental betting on innovative thematic axes and heterogeneous approaches to the various types of knowledge that contribute to thinking about the city and architecture. The fact that the preliminary study is linked to an architecture school with a strong design tradition invites us to publish practical experiences that can contribute to a broader theoretical construction. However, we also cannot abandon more conventional approaches, resulting from decades of scientific thought production.

In this sense, we invited the professor Ana Tostões to this publication, and challenged her to coordinate and organize a thematic dossier, with diversified approaches to the same theme / problem. We were proud to accept making a number of the Preliminary Study dedicated to the architect Nuno Teotónio Pereira, composing, through various testimonies in direct speech, a dossier in memoriam. We were also able to count on the publication of a book by Nuno Teotónio Pereira, recently released by the Câmara de Lisboa, by Rita Megre. We also published a critical review of the book City and Port by Han Meyer, by André Fernandes. Finally, the interview for this issue was carried out by architect Telmo Cruz.

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 09

Summer 2016

Editorial

With issue #09 of the magazine Pré Prévio, we continue a new cycle that, without abandoning the characteristics of the editorial project – located in the academy, promoting reflection and knowledge sharing through the spoken and written word, crossing knowledge and research from different locations geographic and professional – intends to broaden the scope of the collaborations already established by the magazine.

At a time when the debate around scientific research takes on new shapes – namely in view of the numerous indexing requirements, associated with a certain normalization of the transmission of knowledge -, and when the definition of the role of research in architecture is intensified, we consider it fundamental betting on innovative thematic axes and heterogeneous approaches to the various types of knowledge that contribute to thinking about the city and architecture. The fact that the preliminary study is linked to an architecture school with a strong design tradition invites us to publish practical experiences that can contribute to a broader theoretical construction. However, we also cannot abandon more conventional approaches, resulting from decades of scientific thought production.

In this sense, we invited the architect and professor Paulo Tormenta Pinto to this publication and challenged him to coordinate and organize a thematic dossier, with diversified approaches to the same theme / problem. The theme itself constitutes a new approach to architecture made in the South – Dossier “Building in the South – Laboratory for the foundations of contemporary Portuguese architecture”, and brings together a set of authors and studies with which we believe to be involved in an important step in the dissemination of research related to this topic, an approach to innovative and pertinent research, but still little explored and published. This issue also includes three articles, in response to our direct invitation, after having attended this series of conferences, dedicated to the architectural production of the hemisphere South – of essential authors on these topics such as Ana Tostões and Ana Magalhães.

Interview

Articles

Files — Building the South

Reviews

Number 08

Winter 2015

Editorial

With the issue #08 of the magazine Pré Prévio, we started a new cycle that, without abandoning the characteristics of the editorial project – located in the academy, promoting reflection and sharing of knowledge through the spoken and written word, crossing knowledge and investigations from different geographical and professionals – intends to broaden the scope of the collaborations already established by the magazine.

At a time when the debate around scientific research takes on new shapes – namely in view of the numerous indexing requirements, associated with a certain normalization of the transmission of knowledge -, and when the definition of the role of research in architecture intensifies, we consider it fundamental betting on innovative thematic axes and heterogeneous approaches to the various types of knowledge that contribute to thinking about the city and architecture. The fact that the preliminary study is linked to an architecture school with a strong design tradition invites us to publish practical experiences that can contribute to a broader theoretical construction. However, we also cannot abandon more conventional approaches, resulting from decades of scientific thought production.

In this sense, we invited – for the next issues – authors with relevant work in research related to the city, architecture and territory. These editors are invited to coordinate and organize a thematic dossier, with diversified approaches to the same theme / problem. With the first guest, anthropologist Maria Assunção Gato, a specialist in research on the house and the anthropology of space, who coordinates the dossier “Ethnographies of the house, values ​​and ways of living”, we have gathered a set of authors and studies with which we believe we have taken an important step in the dissemination of research related to the home, an area of ​​fundamental and comprehensive research, but still little explored and published. This issue also includes two articles, in response to our open call for article submissions, one dedicated to the contribution of geographic information technologies to spatial planning (Susana Brito and Teresa Santos) and another to research in architectural design (Joana Vilhena ).

Interview

Articles

Files — Homes

Reviews

Number 07

Summer 2015

Editorial

With the issue #07 of the magazine Pré Prémio, we completed four years of publication, with eight editions, from the issue #00 to the current issue #07. We started in 2011, with the ambition to create an editorial project located in the academy, that would promote reflection and knowledge sharing through the spoken and written word, crossing knowledge and research from different geographical and professional locations.

At a time when research in Architecture is still open and, even, in question, we wanted from an early age to cross themes that addressed contemporary and recurring issues in the profession, from the Crisis and Participated Architecture to the Suburbs and Neighborhoods. In this issue we publish an interview with the architect Ricardo Carvalho, current Director of the Department of Architecture at the Autonomous University of Lisbon, an article in the area of ​​Law, opening the range to interdisciplinary collaborations, an article of theoretical research on architecture and a dossier of three theses master’s degree, seeking to disseminate the quality research that is done in universities, in this case at UAL and ISCTE.

Through the interviews we made a survey of the academic and professional paths of internationally recognized architects, which cross the practice with the academy and, in some cases, with the investigation and publication / dissemination of Architecture. We also published books that are essential references in studios and universities and presented more recent ones, which also became important for a reflection on the various territories of architecture and knowledge. The bet on a bilingual magazine and on image quality was assumed by the university, since the beginning of the project, as an important characteristic for the dissemination of the content produced, reaching forty thousand readers over these four years.

At this point, we must thank everyone for the contributions received to date and the countless collaborations that have motivated us to continue over the past four years. Thanks.

Interview

Articles

Files — Theses

Reviews

Numbers 05 / 06

Winter 2014

Editorial

Architecturology (Caroline Lecourtois, 2014), Research-by-design (Johan De Walsche, 2014), Action research (Johan De Walsche, 2014), Research based design (Jorgen Hauberg, 2014), Practice based research, Research trough Architecture, Research in Architecture (João Menezes Sequeira, 2014) were concepts exposed and discussed at the 3rd International Conference on Architecture and Research with the theme Research on Architecture / Research in Architecture (Labart – Laboratory of Architecture of the Study Center of Universidade Lusófona – April 2011) and they reflect with some clarity the different types of approach to research in architecture that, currently, are debated in the academic and professional environment.

The architects interviewed in the various numbers of the previous study responded with determination that the professional practice in which they are involved – carrying out architectural projects, from territorial analysis to the completion of the work, going through all the research processes and selection of construction methodologies and their respective materials – it is in itself a valid method of investigation because it follows the normal procedure of any other type of investigation: Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis. Starting from a set of assumptions, new questions are constructed that are adopted, rejected and resolved in a closed and shareable work.

The problem raised by the recent doctoral theses in Research through Architecture (Research trough Architecture) focuses on its validity as an object of study, especially when architects / researchers choose to work on their own architectural production. In a way, this new doctoral strand requires a greater openness on the themes validated by the academy since, until very recently, only research was done on History of Architecture (monographs and thematic historiographies), Urbanism or Technique in Architecture (construction methods and constituent elements).

On the other hand, the growing need for crossing knowledge from various disciplines (present in many of the projects and collectives of the last few years) seems to make unavoidable approaches distinct from the previous ones, inasmuch as the result is increasingly an innovative synthesis of various knowledges and not a cumulative sum of them.

The dossier that we publish in this issue are articles resulting from the communications presented at the international conference Espaço Público. The Place of the Square in the Contemporary City, organized by DA / UAL, in partnership with ISCTE and the support of the Order of Architects, on 13 and 14 January 2012.

Interview

Articles

Files — Public space

Reviews

Number 04

Summer 2014

Editorial

As a research theme, the Neighborhood continues to be an urban object that follows the history of the city and remains alive in the daily life and in the collective imagination of its inhabitants, in addition to the physical and functional changes that are occurring.

The debate around the neighborhood as a space for proximity, identity and the promotion of architectural, social and cultural practices has resurfaced in recent decades, a little counter-cycled to the changing dynamics that characterize contemporary cities in the globalized world. This resurgence seems to be linked to the objective of preserving something that the city will have that is more particular and specific in terms of its cultural and heritage identity. In order to respond to this and other objectives that arise, local movements, social agents, actions and projects, both public and private, are multiplying.

In this scenario, it seems to gain more and more sense to speak of Bairro on the current map of large cities, where – perhaps paradoxically – home, work, consumption and leisure are located several kilometers away and require motorized travel. As such, it is justified, on the one hand, to register and disseminate what is happening most significantly at the local scale and, on the other, to seek to analyze trends and phenomena to fit them into a broader theory of urban studies, in order to support the debate and interventions in the contemporary city. Several questions arise: is the renewal of the idea of ​​Bairro a contemporary urban necessity? Is the importance and availability of municipal funds for interventions in Neighborhoods within the city linked to the resurgence of the debate around the Neighborhood? Are these interventions underlining local authenticities or recreating Glocal neighborhoods (global + local)?

The dossier that we published in this issue is the result of a research project that sought to cross various fields of knowledge around the theme of the neighborhood in contemporary Lisbon. Starting from existing works to an approach that seeks to deepen the concept itself and its multiple meanings and the corresponding spatializations.

Interview

Articles

Files — Neighborhoods

Reviews

Number 03

Winter 2013

Editorial

Villa Rotonda, Villa Savoye, Farnsworth house, Malaparte house, Rietveld Schröder house, are names of houses as well known as any international museum. The design of a house has always been, for the architect, a space for research and freedom in the field of exploring new spaces and new correlations between them, new programmatic organizations, new materials and new ways of building the Habitar.

Habitar is closely linked to the beginnings of architecture and the house has always represented the possibility of working on a program that questions all the general values ​​of the discipline as well as the most detailed problems that each person values ​​in their daily well-being.

Survey and investigation works such as the Popular Architecture Survey or the studies on Social Housing carried out by LNEC under the coordination of the architect Nuno Portas or, internationally, studies carried out by authors such as Engels, Alison and Peter Smithson on housing, came bring to the Habitation problem several updates of domestic needs referenced to a specific territory, culture and specific population. On the other hand, the global dissemination of these same investigations, as well as the spread of general knowledge of all projects carried out in the world, and even those not carried out, added a proliferation of possible references, prone to the uncritical use of collages and transposed influences. for the house project. In parallel, and even paradoxically, there is a growing interest in local materials and techniques and in their integration into contemporary works.

Currently, we live in an age without universal dogmas, but it can be said that, in terms of house designs, there is a Japanese-influenced fashion that paints everything white and frees spaces for hybrid uses, functionally separated from everyday reality. On the other hand, with the growing remodeling market in the “Europe of Crisis”, we are witnessing a critical inertia that uses the same imagery for all projects: wooden floors or light gray self-leveling, walls, ceilings, kitchen and bathroom. white bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, living room, kitchen, 2 or 3 bathrooms …

At present, mobility and the impact of globalization on contemporary life allow individuals to experience, directly or in a mediated way, different housing experiences – contrary to what happened in traditional society. In this context, a set of new questions is raised on old themes:

– Will contemporary houses be adapted to new forms / rhythms of life?

– Are architects wasting opportunities to rethink and make Habitar evolve?

– What other knowledge and disciplines are you thinking about inhabiting? What conclusions advance? How is this knowledge absorbed and integrated into architecture?

– Are we all reducing our well-being to adapt to existing homes?

And finally, what house should the contemporary house be?

In this issue we have the opportunity to publish articles dedicated to this theme, with contributions that go beyond the restricted field of architecture. The first, by Anthropologist Maria Assunção Gato, approaches the House as a privileged space for identity expression and social representation, from its location to the decorative objects that the house exposes to restricted visits. The second article, by architect Sérgio Silva and mathematician Francisco Blasques, develops the possibility of incorporating, in the process of creating a project, a public consultation, in an online questionnaire format, to map the individual preferences of possible users before materializing them. under construction. Casa appears in this mapping project, Archimetry, as an experimental example of a possible system still in process that combines Statistics with Research in Architecture and, potentially, with practice in Architecture.

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 02

Summer 2013

Editorial

During the Cold War, the world was subdivided into three different categories that grouped countries according to their alliance: First World (United States, Western Europe, South Africa and Australia), Second World (Soviet Union, Japan and Cuba) and Third World (Africa, Middle East and South America). This denomination was changed with the fall of the Soviet Union to an economic-social distinction that continued to divide the world into three parts but now as Developed Countries, Developing Countries and Underdeveloped Countries. Currently, although none of these divisions is consensual among different world organizations, all are governed by different statistical indicators that establish different relationships (economic, social, human, political) between countries – which inevitably leads us to meanings like Developed Countries and Emerging Countries . Nowadays the list of Emerging Countries of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) includes about 150 countries, from Ethiopia and Yemen to Croatia and Brazil.

Countries with emerging economies are and will always be fertile ground for new proposals, new projects, enabling the realization of many theoretical hypotheses and even projects, which at the outset, seemed very difficult to make possible. In the last twenty years, we have witnessed, worldwide, the development and economic growth of several countries – China, the United Arab Emirates, and more recently, Angola and Brazil, among others – and accompanying this same growth has always been the possibility of a number of projects and proposals for a new century come true…

At a time when most of our architects are emigrating, or working from Portugal to emerging countries, we have proposed in this issue to open the postponed debate on the type of Europeans in emerging countries and also on the type of order placed at from there, that is, on the type of interest, of those same emerging countries in the performance of emigrant professionals or professionals in “remote-control” mode. For a new generation of architects, freed from the colonial past, the personal challenge of working in countries, where they may even have the language in common, is combined with the professional opportunity to see their projects built. However, even though – as stated by José Adrião in the interview for this issue – young architects are well prepared, from a technical and conceptual point of view, when confronting reality, many doubts and questions arise: what architecture to do in these contexts and how? Is the performance expected of the architect to be a “foreign” professional, an agent of modernity, or rather a professional who integrates models and promotes continuities? How are existing barriers overcome (linguistic, cultural, technical and even the scale of the territories)? How to take advantage of everything that can be innovative and potentially interesting in territories under construction?

Interestingly, the articles received by estudprevio.net are in line and describe and reflect on a more participatory and collaborative type of action as a project method. Both the architect Luca Astorri, who currently collaborates with NGOs in countries such as Brazil and Nigeria, as the architect Paulo Moreira, in Angola, and as the architect Raquel Henriques defend the field work and how the best way to really get to know the territory and its inhabitants and see in that same performance the best design process, contrary to the normal procedure, based on the urban plan / architect / project process ordered or tendered.

In the end, we will always have built territories. It remains to be seen how.

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 01

Winter 2012

Editorial

Around the 1980s, in Portugal, following a trend that was already observable in many European cities, there was a paradigm shift in the attraction of cities, moving from the centripetal phase (where the city attracted people to its center) to a centrifugal phase (where the city expanded in a horizontal and dispersed movement). Since then, until today, many of these suburbs have grown without planning and with no ambition of spatial planning, which results in an expanded territory , dispersed and uncoordinated.

Despite the efforts of some initiatives to resolve various peri-urban areas, the truth is that most of them resulted in specific arrangements for some medium-sized cities and did not indicate any resolution for the disconnectivity of the various suburban centers, still dependent on the mother city. The figure of the planner – whether he is an urban planner or an architect – is often distant from any discussion of the suburbs, resulting in the production of territorial management instruments without a “concept”, which results in an overlap of instruments that do not help to solve problems effectively, creating growing contradictions. Even in terms of architectural production, few author architects receive orders placed in the suburbs, generating a professional myth that “you can’t do anything properly” except in the cities – excluding, of course, holiday homes or holiday homes. weekends, in bucolic spaces.

In this context, the widening of the discussion, and the possible demystification of the suburbs, is hampered by the ambiguity and dispersion that the concept is capable of assimilating. The suburb has become a word capable of integrating and signifying completely disparate spaces such as the segregated neighborhood (r), the periphery, the city limits, the neighborhoods, the industrial zones, satellite cities, outskirts, garden-cities, informal city, non-place, or, peri-urban territories.

In a general and agglutinating way, we can affirm that the word suburban bodes somewhat imprecise, in the process of becoming tangible and recognizable; something that over the years has been used to fix a series of undefined territories, or that were beginning to be understood; something that is diffuse and complex. However, we have to face these new territories, with a positive proactivity, looking for new operational concepts and deepening our knowledge of the different real situations, so that we can better understand the various types of suburbs, and act on them in the best possible way.

We hope that this number UM of the Preliminary Study will be a beginning for the debate around this extensive problem that wanders in the unconscious of all of us and that it is possible to transform the suburbs into fertile territories that promote solutions for “well-being and well-being” of the human being.

Interview

Articles

Reviews

Number 00

Summer 2012

Editorial

Architecture practice is intrinsically linked to life on Earth, to its climatic variations, to the different stages of development of each population and to each of its local and global specificities. And it is from this point of view that nothing is excluded from practice in architecture.

CRISIS will also influence the way of thinking about Architecture in general, just as it has already changed the architect’s way of acting in the face of the different challenges that are currently being faced. More and more, outside the mainstream, new principles and complex systems are emerging that explore alternative ways of positioning ourselves before the imbalance of the system that everyone had forgotten was fragile – the capitalist system. Outside the system that creates image architectures through formalities that are too expensive to be supported over an extended period of time, questions are raised and solutions are found that are capable of putting the contemporary practice we know in checkmate. In no way can we miss this opportunity to look to the side and share knowledge about other realities, other practices, other ways of thinking and acting, in order to ask better questions and find better solutions.

Will the architect have the power to help resolve any CRISIS? What changes can be proposed and which others are inevitable? But what CRISIS are we experiencing today?

We started this series of publications with the most debated topic these days – CRISIS – and to start the debate and knowledge sharing, we invited to participate with the first articles, Dª Lia Vasconcelos – PhD in Environmental Engineering / Social Systems , Master in Architecture and Regional and Urban Planning and coordinator of several collaborative participation initiatives in political governance – and the Ecuadorian atelier Al Borde – which has developed its work around the sustainable use of resources, the reduction of superfluous expenses in construction, the use of community self-help systems and the return to the primitive notion of inhabiting the planet.

Thus, we have two approaches: that of the atelier for whom new difficulties are the engine for new approaches; and the one that defends that the path that has brought us here is not the one that will allow us to move forward, nor to find innovative answers. Both are found in the creation of communities of practice that result from the integration of various types of knowledge, formal and informal, in the search for the most appropriate solution for each crisis, or situation.

At the same time, we invited the architect Manuel Graça Dias for a conversation in the UAL studios, where we could learn more about his career as a student, teacher and architect, and through the same interview we ended up talking about the failed education that results in insensitive and uncritical students. and the lack of flexibility of the State to develop positive synergies – in short, about the various crises in the country and the sum of all of them in the current CRISIS in which we live.

Interview

Articles

Reviews