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Informal

1914/2014 Policies for social housing

A l e ss i a A l l e g r i , M i g u e l E u f r s i a
1933 Affordable Houses
Programme

A family that takes shelter under

its own roof is naturally more
economical, more stable and better
constituted. That is why we are
not interested in big phalansteries,
the colossal constructions for
housing the working class ().
To our independent character
and to benefit our well-mannered
simplicity, we rather wish for the
small-sized, independent house,
inhabited and fully owned by the
family.
1945 Affordable Rents
Housing Initiative

[The Ramalde neighbourhood]

was also the first, legitimate and
even necessary opportunity to
() erect our own Siemens
neighbourhood, countering the
narrow and petit bourgeois spirit
of the recently finished Alvalade,
with its functionalist method, with

its outspoken subordination to

faade exposure, with its concept of
core and free space, in a minutely
defined zoning. Nuno Portas, 1961
1974 Local Ambulatory
Support Service

There was never an attempt to

prefigure the city, daily life or the
forms of socialist life, there was
never an attempt to elaborate a
counterplan outside the realm of
the dwellers conscience. The point
was to propose, through practice,
a methodological alternative born
out of a dynamic process of struggle
and organization, which would
constitute a process in itself and
create its own provisional images
and build its own theory. Alves
Costa, 1978
1993 Special Rehousing
Programme

For the construction of affordable

housing, the State grants subsidized

loans for both the purchase of

land and respective infrastructure
development, as well as the
construction works; in addition
to fiscal and parafiscal benefits,
materialized in the exemption or
reduction of taxes, fees and other
costs. Decree-law no. 162/93
2004 Urban Rehabilitation
Societies

() This [Porto municipal] policy

rests on a deterministic logic of
real-estate promotion of the prt-porter kind, aimed at a medium
to high standard, abstract client,
in detriment of a participatory
(re)housing process. That logic in
fact leads to the destruction and
imperviousness of the central core
of neighbourhoods, because it relies
on urban cosmetic operations,
where usually very little is left of
the pre-existing fabric beyond the
scenography of historical faades.
Nuno Grande, 2013 39.H1

On the verge of a nervous breakdown

Can revolutionary verve trigger a new engagement between architecture and politics?
Miguel Eufrsia

The widespread demonstrations that took

place in North African (Arab Spring), North
American (Occupy Wall Street) and European cities (the Indignados) illustrate how
the contemporary condition is characterized
by a growing, and generalised, sentiment of
discontent and social dispute towards the
Democratic ideals in a world increasingly
dominated by the ever-expanding processes
of Globalization. The choice of public space
as the place in which to show public dissatisfaction seems an all too obvious one, but
there is no overstating the capacity of public

space to function as a vehicle of collective

cohesion. In this respect, it is revealing to
consider, for instance, that the 2013 Turkish
protests were triggered by the governments
intention to privatize (by building a shopping centre) a public space in Istanbul, the
Taksim Gezi Park. In Portugal, the frequent
protests targeting the austerity reforms, illustrate the generalised depressing disbelief in
the future, in progress, in politicians, in politics and its institutions. The social welfare
state is in regression, 4 out of 10 employees
have had salary cuts, youth unemployment
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401

rate is of 35% and someone emigrates every 4

minutes, so it does not come as a surprise that
social tension is very high.
Architecture or Revolution. Revolution
can be avoided. These are the last words in
Le Corbusiers 1922s Towards a New Architecture, arguably the single most important
architectural document of the 20th century.
It is the question of building which lies at
the root of the social unrest today, he argues.
Despite celebrating the technological revolution sparked by scientific and industrial
progress, for Le Corbusier, architectures core
task is to address social dissatisfaction, and
therefore, to abort social turmoil. Urban transformations brought on by Modern Architecture, especially to Housing, would become the
revolutions avatar. Ninety-two years later, the
question of how Architecture can represent
and embody the Collective appears to be even
more relevant, but more importantly, it seems
as though the debate has only just begun.
If the convergence between social goals
and economic rationality was at the core
of the Heroic Modernitys promises of a
better future, todays world reveals a clear
and present rupture between the two. As
Boaventura Sousa Santos puts it we are the
heirs of Modernitys promises and, though
the promises were auspicious and grandiose (equality, liberty, fraternity), we have
accumulated a spoil of debt. This becomes
exceedingly noticeable in the European
countries in crisis, the derogatorily branded
PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and
Spain). Therefore, the state of crisis sets an
appropriate stage for a critical analysis of the
achievements of the Modern Project and its
erosive effect on the values and institutions
that structure the Collective domain.
In the Portuguese cities, the inexistence

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of public investment, narrow prospects of

future private commissions and scarce design
competitions have caused an enduring stagnation of the real-estate and construction
sector and the appearance of a new substance:
unfinished and abandoned buildings. It
seems contradictory that, in a country in
crisis, the rationality of the system dictates
the waste of resources and energy, furthering
the deterioration of the public realm and the
dissolution of the social fabric. These aborted
urbanscapes unveil the fundamental inner
pathology of a fully-functioning irrational
capitalist system, but ultimately, they epitomise Contemporary Architectures failure
to respond to Collective concerns. In the
current state of affairs, how can architecture
counter market speculation without compromising its very existence? Should housing
be erased from the architects agenda in the
coming years? How can architecture remain a
vital force in Portuguese contemporary cities?
Can we become modern once again? Should
we scrap Modernitys extraordinary conquests
regarding housing? Or trigger revolution and
forget architecture? How can a responsible
answer take shape?
The project Architecture and Crisis:
Summoning the collective will explore a
possible escape route from the straightjacket
that currently constrains the architectural
profession. It has the objective of addressing
the challenges posed by the current crisis in
Portugal by directly engaging architectures
political agency in the construction of critically responsive new models that assemble
and mediate the interests of the multiple
stakeholders that converge on the architectural project today. It is not an ambitious
proposal; It is a rather orthodox vindication.
Architecture or Revolution? 40.H1

Crisis Quotes
Miguel Eufrsia

Residential mortgage markets are

now equivalent to more than 40
percent of gross domestic product
(GDP) in developed countries. (...)
When a countrys system is more
developed and mature, the public
sector can encourage a secondary
mortgage market, develop
financial innovations, and expand
the securitization of mortgages.
Occupant-owned housing, usually
a households largest single asset by
far, is important in wealth creation,
social security and politics.
World Banks World Development
Report, Reshaphing Ecnomic
Geography, 2009
In 1994, Portuguese banks had
loaned out 3 thousand million
euros for housing purchase. In
2007, the value raised 5 fold:
15 thousand million. When the
crisis happened, the total sum of
outstanding mortgage credits was
104 thousand million euros, a
much higher amount than the 78
thousand million of the troika loan
package. (...) In less than 10 years,
the banks depleted the Portuguese
families debt limits. We broke
all the records. Between 1999
and 2001, 3 out of every 4 loans

concerned housing purchase. In

fact, the Portuguese bankers built a
marble tower on a swamp. And it
is a mix of cheap money, absolute
selfreliance, euphoria, and belief
in the virtue of the alleged virtues
of financial innovations that has
brought us to this point.
The destructive power of finance:
real estate, offshores and shadowbanking, Pblico, 13 april 2013
More than 11m homes lie empty
across Europe enough to house
all of the continents homeless twice
over (...) hundreds of thousands
of half-built homes have been
bulldozed in an attempt to shore up
the prices of existing properties. (...)
In Spain more than 3.4m homes lie
vacant (...) The Spanish government
estimates that an additional
500,000 part-built homes have
been abandoned by construction
companies across the country.
During the housing boom, which
saw prices rise by 44% between
2004-08, Spanish builders knocked
up new homes at a rate of more
than 800,000 a year. (...) In Portugal
there are 735,000 vacant properties
a 35% increase since 2001
according to the 2011 census.

Scandal of Europes 11m empty

homes Housing campaigners
denounce shocking waste
of homes lying empty while
millions cry out for shelter in The
Guardian, 23 february 2014
Many people no longer
trust mainstream politicians.
Worst of all, many are losing
faith in democracy itself. This
antiestablishment, anti-foreigner,
anti-EU mood is fertile ground for
extremists and snake-oil salesmen.
Xenophobic and reactionary parties
such as Britains Ukip and Frances
Front National look set to do
exceptionally well. They peddle a
return to a romanticised past when
the world seemed less threatening:
when Europe was less open, less
diverse and everyone knew their
place. Europe desperately needs
to change. We need a European
Spring: economic and political
renewal.
The eurozone crisis has tipped
many into disillusionment,
despair and extremism we
need a European Spring The
Independent, 27 april 2014

Tackling Big Empty Spaces

Design for Crisis: An architectural tactic for the expansion of architectural possibilities
ADO C

The 2007 collapse of the western financial system, triggered by the United States
subprime mortgage meltdown and the
resultant burst of the real estate bubble had a
profound influence in the Portuguese Urban
landscape. The current crisis, inextricably
fuelled by speculative rise in property value,
lenient planning laws and easy access to

housing loan credit sets the stage for a propositional reflection regarding the concept
of the Collective. The visible dimension of
the financial rupture, demonstrated by the
numerous unfinished constructions and real
estate developments that symbolise open
wounds in the urbanity, will be the object
under scrutiny. They are a part of a bigger
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403

and more invisible issue, the massive amount

of vacant buildings and unused properties
owned by banks and real-estate funds.
The key objective of project Architecture
and Crisis: Summoning the Collective is to
achieve the completion of an architectonic
structure whose construction was interrupted
by financial issues. However, it is an exercise that proposes a change in architectures
current role within the urban production
processes, intervening directly in its business
model and redistributing the actions of its
agents in order to address a specific social and
urban problem. It will instigate Architectural
practice to become the platform of consensus
between stakeholders by intensifying its
engagement with pre-established processes
and plans of action, in order to achieve a social
and urban gain. The project does not rely on
an expectation of economic recovery, so it is
not driven by a vision of future prosperity. Its
core dynamic will be placed in the pre-design
stage, therefore concentrating efforts on a
more political dimension in the development
of strategies in the Housing domain.
The architectural device of the design
proposal entails both a volumetric mapping
of the dwellings, maximizing spatial flexibility and increasing the responsiveness to
the public space, and a radical differentiation
of domestic space configuration. The idea is
to challenge the virtually absolute homogeny
of housing typologies available in the market,
that are codified by a banal and rigid spatial
setting, and in which the great differentiator
is the number of bedrooms. Each house can
be sold bare, with minimum facilities (one
kitchen and one bathroom) and the partitions will be made by extrapolating specific
needs and preferences of future owners. This
architectural strategy will lead to a substantial
decrease in the required material investment,
leading to a well below average housing pricing
and to an increase of its affordability. On the
other hand, it gives the owners the opportunity either to work alongside architects to
personalize/tailor the domestic environment
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or to simply live in a bare space whose configuration can evolve in time. Hence, from a
marketing point of view, the architectural
product is not a close-end, entirely realized
and already complete typology, but cubic
meters of fully configurable private space.
The successful implementation of this
architectural strategy requires a convergence
of attitudes from the all the stakeholders.
It needs an easing of the bureaucracy from
the city hall, a relaxation of the modus
operandi from the financial agents, a willingness by real-estate developers to accept
out-of-the-box proposals, the capacity to
adapt from the point of view of management from the building contractors, and an
openness from architecture to continuously
update its proposals. Therefore, each unfinished building proposes a different challenge, calls for distinctive actions, and will
produce singular design approaches, so there
is no way of neatly framing the project. On
the other hand, as it also does not want to
contribute to the expansion of the building
environment, the eligibility of an adequate
unfinished structure will be dependent on its
urban sitting, its physical characteristics.
It is important to underline that the project
does not aspire to become a universal solution.
It is precisely the opposite, as it proposes a
discreet, case-by-case, exercise, that expands
potentials and mutual and symbiotical
benefits. For the owners of the half-finished
building, it is a plan to escape financial ruin
and escalating maintenance costs. For the realestate developers, it is a plan to reduce both
in the construction cost and the investment
risk. For the city council it is an opportunity to solve an urban problem. The project
is responsive to the contemporary demand
for increasing flexibility regarding industry,
market and lifestyles; it creates a product that
currently does not exist in the market while
addressing a blind spot in the housing system.
In the current context of crisis and inertia
of the building and real estate sectors, the
project has the merit of placing architecture

face-to-face with its responsibilities regarding

the Collective realm, by setting architecture as

the place of convergence of the agents involved

in urban planning and management. 41.H1

Architectural crisis
Miguel Eufrsia

Crisis could not be more architectural,

or less. The field of architecture is devoted to
suppressing a sense of crisis but is propelled by
the very thing it represses. As the art of limits,
architecture is always in a dialectic with crisis.
The most crucial insights into the evolutions,
complications, and responsibilities of the field
can be found within the most traumatic scenes.
Mark Wigley, Space in crisis, 2014
In this recent text, Mark Wigley focuses
on the intricate and underrated relationship
between crisis and architecture. On the one
hand he states that to declare a crisis is to
declare the need for architecture, and focuses
on the paradoxical idea that architectural
design it is propelled by crisis but at the same
time its purpose is to removing the sense of
crisis. On the other hand, Wigley portrays
crisis as a potential and inventive force stating
that since the nineteenth century, theorists
have often portrayed crisis as a primary agent
of forward progress in all aspects of individual and collective life, conjecturing that
it could be that every part of the built environment has been shaped by prior crises. To
Wigley, Crisis is a crucial, unacknowledged
and recurrent concept in Architecture, acting
as an avant-garde trigger. However, the actual
experience of crisis is not so intellectually
stimulating. It is one of dramatic and intensified standoff between Social values and
Economic processes.
The right to the city is far more than the
individual liberty to access urban resources: it
is a right to change ourselves by changing the
city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an

individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective
power to reshape the processes of urbanization.
The freedom to make and remake our cities and
ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most
precious yet most neglected of our human rights.
David Harvey, the right to the city, 2008
The problem with the increasing intertwinement between urban substances and the
processes of capitalism is that the former has
an ever-present readiness to segregate urban
space when time comes to accumulate and
distribute the profits. This is the main reason
why the aborted urbanscapes of unfinished
buildings emerge as such a remarkable example
of the embodiment of the on-going shortcircuit between architecture, economy and
politics. But, in a state of crisis, if architecture
is to instigate urban transformation regarding
the needs and ambitions of the collective,
thereby opposing to leave the city in the hands
of the market (as David Harvey seems to be
suggesting), its manoeuvring space seems to be
primarily located in the realm of micropolitics
rather than of straightforward design practice.
This is not to suggest a new focus on architectures role as a representation of political
concepts or to posit revolution as architectures
political ambition. It is to push for the clarification of the current state of affairs and to directly
engage with the real, allowing experimental
models and proposals to emerge from these
processes. Ultimately, it is a call for the constitution of a political agency in Architecture as an
effective tool to produce change.

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405

Summoning the collective

Change from the within

Navigating the crossroads of the built environment and global capital

ADO C & M i g u e l E u f r s i a
Miguel Eufrsia

The first venture: An unfinished building in Moscavide

A survey carried out in the Loures
Council unsurprisingly pinned down
several unfinished and empty buildings. One of them, located in the vibrant,
compact and well connected urban setting of
Moscavide(384653.13N; 9611.12W),
assembled the ideal requirements for our
venture. It is a 100x180m, 3 storey bare
concrete structure (see picture above), which
was designed for 37 300 m2 of commercial
and office space plus 36 000 m2 of belowground parking space. Its construction had
halted due to the failure in finding potential buyers. However, precisely because of its
impending usage (commerce), with qualities
such as the forthrightly exposed concrete
slabs, columns and staircases, high ceiling
heights and spatial flexibility, the structure
condenses an immanent potential that in a
way resonates with Le Corbusiers 1914s
Dom-ino prototype. Therefore, this project
can be understood both as a tribute and a sitespecific, contextual and retroactive departure
from the pervasive Modernist model.
The project
The Summoning the Collective initiative gathered the necessary information and
drafted a proposal converting of the oversized and futureless commercial construction into a no-frills taylor-made housing
experiment, maximizing typology diversity, ensuring future spatial adaptability as a
method to warrant financial and economic
feasibility. Surprisingly, the city council, the
proprietor, the developer and the building
company, displayed enthusiastic support
for the project. Through the mediation of
architectural agency, financial and bureaucratic stalemates have been overcome, but
further challenges lie ahead. One of the
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Collective

projects economically indispensable premisses is the reduction of structural changes to

a bare minimum, that is to say, to undertake
the already built construction as an object
trouve. However, features such as the depth
of 22m, the 4m floor to ceiling, the position
and the size of existing staircases raises flags
regarding building regulations and municipal
planning law. In fact, even if light abundance, air salubrity and spatial quality are
ensured by fragmenting the built mass (see
model picture on the right), a strict reading
of current legal framework can thwart this or
any housing project for the site, an issue that
reveals a lack of touch with contemporary
reality that will be addressed further on.
The Politics
The state of Crisis does not imply a
lesser need for Architectural ingenuity. On
the contrary, Crisis demands an increase of
out-of-the-box thinking and radical intervention. The current gridlock in the real estate
market and the construction sector forces
all of its agents to make structural changes
and to search for innovative practices if they
want to endure. This is the reason why this
is such an absolutely unique opportunity for
architecture to destabilize current homogenised procedures and models that compose
urban planning: Crisis opens up the prospect for the intensification of Architectures
operative influence regarding the decisionmaking forces in the contemporary city. The
Summoning the Collective project intends
to exemplify the possibility of a more micropolitically engaged architectural practice. The
project will be developed throughout the
three issues of Homeland and will continue
beyond the 2014 Venice Biennale. 42.H1

Looking back at the past century, probably one of the most problematic and less
theorized dimensions of architecture is the
ever-increasing entanglement between the
development of urban substance and the
processes of the economic system. As David
Harvey explains, this occurs for a wellknown
reason: the expansion and interconnectivity
of urbanization is precisely what allows the
control and organization of labour and revenues. But all this is not exactly breaking news.
In the late sixties, in the issues of Contropiano, Massimo Cacciari, Manfredo Tafuri
and their colleagues at the Venice School
frequently pointed out that the whole course
of Modern Architecture could not be understood independently from the processes of
Capital. Following the lead of postmodern
thinkers such as Walter Benjamin, Edmund
Husserl and the work of neo-Marxist social
theorists from the Frankfurt School, Tafuris
wide spectrum analyses transgressed disciplinary specializations and combined politics,
aesthetics, political economy and architecture into one analytical endeavour, entitled
Project of Crisis. For Tafuri, Crisis is criticisms point of departure and, most importantly, it constitutes the immanent structure
of History, allowing it to bring into question the legitimacy of the capitalist division
of labour. Today, such an incisive project
retains its pertinence, especially considering
the contemporary socio-economic demise,
and authors such as Pier Vittorio Aureli
have revisited Tafuris work while looking for
critical insights on the way for contemporary
architecture to go forward.
But if Tafuris neo-Marxist critique
acknowledged the need to keep open
dialogues, working towards the dissolution
of borders, regarding the prevalent forces of
urban production, and demanded a constant

demystification of ideas in order to move

away from utopian perspectives, on the other
hand, todays left-wing critical rhetoric insists
on the necessary withdrawal of architecture
from capitalist practices, into a detached and
autonomous domain, neutralizing the possibility of negotiation. But even an architectural
project that tries to counter the proliferation of profit-based developments ends up
becoming part of the neo-liberal system they
wish to repeal, when everything is taken into
consideration. Moreover, there is no overstating the importance of private and public
capital in the building of crucial infrastructures that steer society forward. Capitalism
is the only game in town and progress, now
more than ever, is anchored in financial institutions and complex credit mechanisms, so
surely if architecture is to play an operative
role in mainstream urban transformations, it
must sustain some level of arrangement with
the market-driven forces, even if it wants to
act against them: Change is only possible
from the within. On the other hand, it is very
difficult to see how contemporary democratic
societies such as the Portuguese can function
when the government is more dependent on
the pronouncements of the IMF than of the
will of its own people. But it is precisely in
this irrational but inexorable paradox that lies
the reason why architecture is failing to serve
the collective: Todays architecture is directed
towards an idea of democratic society that no
longer exists. Consequently, the real problem
is not Capitalism, but the acceptance of the
contemporary Democratic illusion, and this is
what should be at the core of todays architectural debate.
This is the propositional and provisional
framework of Summoning the Collective
initiative. And although it is addressing
a precise and specific urban problem: the
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407

unfinished buildings owned by real-estate

funds that populate urban areas, it is actually proposing to disturb the role of the
architect, to transgress the path of disciplinary expertise, to expand the possibilities
of architectural action, advocating for an
explicitly pragmatic and ruthless use of its

power. Ultimately, this initiative aims to be a

contribution for the clarification of the vague
crossroads between the processes of irreversible globalization and unstable spatial and
material organizations in the era of abstract
financial instruments. 43.H2

Crisis Quotes
Miguel Eufrsia

Hope of a better future a belief

that progress is possible is fading.
The project that binds Europeans
together the European Union
has never been more unpopular;
Britons may even vote to leave.
The EUs crowning achievement,
the euro, is increasingly perceived
as a sadomasochistic straitjacket.
Understandable anger at the
flagrant injustice of bailouts for
rich bankers and budget cuts
for poor schoolchildren overlaps
with a despicable scapegoating of
outsiders, in particular immigrants.
Many people no longer trust
mainstream politicians, EU
technocrats and elites in general.
Worst of all, many are losing faith
in democracy itself.
The eurozone crisis has tipped
many into disillusionment,
despair and extremism we
need a European Spring the
independent, 27 apr 2014
People are just as important to me
as goods and capital. So if they can
move freely, so must people be able
to! #wahlarena #withJuncker.
Jean-Claude Juncker tweet, 20
may 2014

The primary cause of the crisis

was the reckless lending of German
and French banks (both directly
and through local banks) to
Spanish and Irish homeowners,
Portuguese consumers and the
Greek government. But by insisting
that Greek, Irish, Portuguese and
Spanish taxpayers pay in full for
those banks mistakes, Chancellor
Angela Merkels government and
its handmaidens in Brussels have
systematically privileged the interests
of German and French banks over
those of euro zone citizens.
Euro-Zone Fiscal Colonialism
New York Times, 21 apr 2014
The spectre of a renewed Eurozone
crisis reared its head yesterday,
hitting shares and bond markets,
as fears deepened over the future
of Portugals biggest listed bank,
Espirito Santo. Portugal is barely
out of its bailout programme, and
investors had hoped the finance
sectors problems were over but
new woes have emerged, routing
other banking stocks. The event
has hit European financials like a
torpedo and has revived investors
darkest nightmares, said Saxo
Banks Peter Garnry.
Portugal banking crisis rocks
markets as Espirito Santo share price
plummets, CITY A.M. 11 jul 2014

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Collective

2013 was the worst year ever for

real estate funds. Surprisingly, the
average yield was negative, and
there are no signs of improvement.
In 5 years, the total value of
unoccupied properties [in
Portuguese funds] increased from
463 million euros to 886 million
euros, which is just about a quarter
of its net asset value.
Real estate funds: worst year ever
proteste investe, 25 feb 2014
Crises stemming from an
overaccumulation in property-led
growth tend to be more longlasting than the short sharp crises
that occasionally rock stock
markets and banking directly;
often resulting in an oversupply
of commodities such as empty
or unfinished architectural
units. We should look closely
at the landscapes produced by
property-led growth strategies as
sites of education and alterity.
Beyond the ghost town
opendemocracy.net, 9 apr 2013

Self-enabling architecture

The first offspring of the Summoning the Collective initiative gathers consensus
Miguel Eufrsia

In the last decade, and according to INE,

Portugal has suffered a 68% decrease in the
number of house building permits, a 75%
drop in house building (24% drop in 2013
alone) and a 55% decline in house sales
volume. These figures speak for the predicaments regarding the construction, real estate
and architectural professions. Nevertheless,
Portugal today has 1.8 million more houses
than families, which corresponds to 45%
excess in dwellings, and these figures do not
take into consideration the number of unfinished buildings abandoned in the aftermath
of the burst of the real estate market bubble.
To say today that in the domain of Architecture things will not be the same as before is an
understatement: changes brought on by Crisis
to the urban domain are of such a magnitude
that we can speak of a change of paradigm.
This is why the on-going Summoning the
Collective initiative (a collaboration between
ADOC architects and Miguel Eufrsia) can
be one example to follow.
At the moment, it is a sealed and empty
massive concrete ruin, useless and with
no future. But all this is about to change.
ADOC architects have persuaded the owner
and developer (a joint-venture between
Obriverca construction and a realestate fund)
of the economic viability of the architectural
proposal. The city council are also on board,
happy to bring closure to an enduring urban
problem.
It can be dubbed self-enabling architecture: The emphasis of the project is on
rooting the design itself on the constituting
of the pre-conditions that enable the whole
enterprise. Therefore, architecture emerges as
the specific and controlled process of mutation, one that translates into matter and

spatial uses, the debated concerns from the

financial, marketing, legal and social arenas.
The architectural project is composed of
three layers: the underground parking, the
ground floor pedestal (that occupies almost
the full extent of the block) dedicated to
commercial spaces and social organizations,
on top of which are the housing units. They
are assembled around a central courtyard/
garden, a semi-public space that catalyzes
social interaction and provides direct access
to the housing units. The adaptation of a
structure which was originally built for office
and commercial purposes, is a balanced
trade-off between minimizing demolition,
to ensure adequate ventilation and sun exposure of the housing units, and the addition
of volume, in order to meet the expected
investment return, thereby making the built
mass more permeable, while maintaining an
adequate low rise scale.
Despite targeting a small quota of
contemporary
urban
problems,
the
Summoning the Collective initiative aims to
be a portal to a larger discussion concerning
the relation between the contemporary role
of the architect and the changing material organization of society. Nevertheless, if
we take into consideration that 22% of the
6,300,000,000 real-estate assets owned by
the six major Portuguese banks are unfinished
and unoccupied buildings (a figure that,
according to Dirio Econmico and Jornal
de Negcios, has doubled from 2009 to 2013
and for which the tendency is to keep rising),
there is a challenging undertaking waiting
to happen in Portuguese urbanity, one that
is pregnant with potential both in creative as
well as in financial terms. 44.H2

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409

Unbox yourself into

On architecture and regulation

Adoc

B y P e d r o C a m p o s C o s ta & M i g u e l E u f r s i a

The dwelling unit as a point of entry toward the project of the city

The Moscavide mixed-use project opens

up a window of opportunity for experimenting
with new domestic space organizations and
lays the path for the search for contemporary
alternatives to the monotonous housing types,
propagated en mass by the Industry.
It proposes to explore the zero degree
condition of housing by advancing a proposal
for user-determined spatial and material
appropriation: the domestication of cubic
meters of space. This is the starting point of
the creation of multiple micro-universes
containers of extended ways of inhabiting,
in which the inherent reductionism of the
design expresses the differentiation of use
possibilities. Given the inherent indeterminacy of the assembly of dwellings, the coexistence of a wide array of individual choices
can be both as exciting as unpredictable, but
its merits are to be evaluated in an extended
timeframe and not at the moment of the
buildings completion.
The subsequent challenge was to find an
operable tectonic solution to the concept.
Therefore, ADOC, in partnership with
SILOGIA, a Lisbon based wall panel manufacturer, are developing a prefabricated
system that adapts the modular partition
system generally used for offices to domestic
requirements, thus bringing into the realm of

housing a fundamental component of todays

workplace architecture.
This system is characterized by its flexibility
and adaptability to any preexisting construction. It is prefabricated, lightweight, easy to
install, can carry water, electrical or electronic
infrastructures, and it is re-positionable and
re-usable. The components of the panel itself
can vary to serve different acoustic, thermal,
waterproofing, or aesthetic needs, in order to
adjust to any required domestic function. It
produces reduced waste and can be assembled by the final user in a reduced timeframe.
Therefore, the partition system provides a
pragmatic answer to the constant change of
modern life. The living space can become the
unmediated reflection of the real necessities
and desires of the dweller.
Ultimately, the project revisits the Modern
dream of universal space and domestic apparatus while reconciling it with architectures
core role as a builder of participative cities.
The concrete void of the domestic space is the
milieu of architectural speculation where the
Collective is addressed in its multiplicity, and
the design is allowed to decouple itself from
the shackles of the pervasive homogenization
of housing models, only to finally return to a
fundamental rethinking of the conditions of
production of contemporary housing. 45.H2

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Interview with Miguel Judas

The panorama of the Portuguese

building regulations is profoundly complex
and anachronistic, typified by an endless
overlapping of laws and regulations. Probably the most paradigmatic case is the
RGEU, General Regulation for Urban
Construction, published in 1951 as an
agent of reform and which is still in effect
today. What can we make of this situation?
The RGEU was developed by the dictatorial regime after WW2, in a context of enormous insufficiencies in the housing domain.
It is a truly remarkable document because it
is a commitment between the assembling of
comprehensive construction rules for a precarious builder class and the setting of safety and
sanitary standards. This kind of pragmatic
compromise in times of urgency is typically
Portuguese. It is a progressive document
because it sets parameters both for urban planning and for minimum dwelling areas that
resonate with the Modern concepts of efficiency, hygienism and existenz minimum. On
the other hand, it is very reactionary because,
for instance, it includes a chapter dedicated to
building aesthetics, a control mechanism of
the avant-garde. Nowadays, the RGEU is an
almost totally useless piece of regulation, but
its conception as a matrix, open to subsequent
superimposition of specialist regulations,
guaranteed its endurance.
Despite the increasing economic and
financial deregulation and decreasing
government investment in social issues,
there is a pervasive conformist tendency
in the recent Portuguese building laws
that, under the pretext of regulating new
technologies, hinders innovation at several
levels. What is the reason for this paradox?
The Law has an innate predisposition
towards being conservative. While reality is
plural, dynamic and tends to evolve, regulations

crystallize a certain reading of reality. Regarding

the Portuguese case I would underline two
motives for the magnification of this tendency:
the legislators relentless view of the citizen as
a potential offender and the widespread awareness that the law courts do not function. The
Portuguese legislation tends to maximize the
predetermination of events as if the future
could be immune to conflict and arbitration...
Moreover, the legislative initiative has demonstrated an enormous inability (or laziness) to
adjust to the countrys functioning structures
and mechanisms. Therefore, we are left with
the consequent outcome: an exquisit corpse
(cadavre exquis).
How can we move forward in this legislative jumble? Given the poor results of
building regulations and the drastic decline
in the building activity (a drop of 75% in
the last decade), should architects battle
for a de-bureaucratization, proposing the
easing of some specific norms or even the
abolition of some decrees?
In order to de-bureaucratize, everything
should become clearer and simpler. I do not
have the silver bullet, but I see no other way
other than to shift the emphasis from administrative control to personal or collective
responsibility: to concede more responsibility
to the authors of a project. The irony of the
discussion regarding the Portuguese building
law is that the unintelligibility and splintering of regulations and the impossibility to
fulfill all the conditions they require has had
an unforeseen and paradoxical consequence of
liberation. It produced the predisposition of
distancing the design process from the world of
regulations, arguably contributing to the high
quality of architecture in Portugal. At the end
of the day, we are left with the righteousness
of Portuguese saying: What has no solution is
already solved.
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Means with no ends

Summoning the collective: projects

Probing into the real transformative capacities of contemporary architecture

Miguel Eufrsia & adoc

Miguel Eufrsia
Ethics of explicit architecture

In December 2013 we initiated a venture

entitled Summoning the Collective, a propositional conceptual agenda that interpreted the
Crisis the enduring and pervasive concern of
the Portuguese society for the last 5 years as an
architectural problem buoyed by the collapse of
the real-estate market and construction industry
and the political vitality unleashed in by acts
of urban protest. The questions on our mind
were: firstly, how can contemporary architecture truly represent democratic life given that
economic processes have more transformative
power in the urban realm than the rhetoric of
architectural ideology; and consequently, how
can architects contribute to the balancing of
the productive relationships between the built
environment and global capital in a democratic
arena undermined by the effects of an enduring
and systemic social and economic recession?
Our endeavour acknowledged two major
matters of concern. First, given the governments ever receding social housing agenda
and shutdown on public spending, it seemed
inevitable that the only effective way forward
involved the establishing of alliances with the
financial market forces, owners of an impressive
volume of futureless real-estate in Portuguese
cities. However, this engagement had to be critically premeditated. The worst possible outcome
of the project would be to end up paving the
way for further proliferation of profit- based
developments, feeding into the endless cycle of
boom and bust it wishes to stabilise. Secondly,
we were convinced that there was a causality
nexus between the struggling responsiveness of
architecture to the current dramatic context and
the existing schism between theory and practice. On that account, we set out to produce
an array of eminently provisional and unstable
theoretical propositions, open to updating or
even discarding, deeply rooted in the urgency
of provoking/catalysing urban transformation.
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As a result, Summoning the Collective attempts

to establish critical links between architectural
thought and the political realm, with the objective of constituting an effective architectural
agency capable of triggering the completion of
unfinished buildings in Portuguese cities, abandoned in the aftermath of the burst of the realestate market bubble.
The eight on-going projects here presented
is the result of the intersection between a
chain of speculative and prospective hypothesis and successful joint-ventures established
with stakeholders (city council planners,
real-estate fund managers, investment bank
assessors, construction entrepreneurs). By
focusing on the engineering of consensus
and compromises between agents that hold
inexorably conflicting visions for the city
there is a feeling that we have hit a nerve.
These commissions witness the critical lack
of creative conciliatory mediation between
the built environment and its agents and that
the spectrum of the architectural milieu can
still be a portal for challenging the rules of
the game. Ultimately, the Summoning the
Collective endeavour is admittedly born out
of the volatility of the financial markets, the
circumstances of contemporary life and the
prevailing mechanisms of urban production.
Hence, it adopts strategies that avoid closure
and keep verdicts open, focuses on means and
not ends and explores specific technical aspects
of a project as the foundation of architectural
expression. It aims to contribute to the broadening of the discussion regarding overlooked
urban potentials while asserting architecture
as the unstable field of genesis and mutation
of spacial and material organisations that
bind the sources of political agency and the
collective in the era of abstract mechanisms of
global financial operations.

Barreiro Housing
Location Barreiro / Intervention Refurbishment/
Upgrade / Use Housing / Total area 11,400 m2

There is a vague ethical standpoint

embedded in the profession against operations
whose prime goal is extrapolating value from
the urban territory. But instead of dwelling on
the moral values against the profit-driven business model, architects should be open to the
possibility that the problem is not that architecture has been absorbed by the mechanisms of
the world of finance, but the fact that the discipline has not yet fully realised the productive
architectural capital that resides in the relations
between design and the conditions consigned by
the financial rationale of the free market. If so,
the rendering intelligible of these nebulous and
tumultuous interactions can be used as a tool for
discovering creative agency for emergent design
practices. The Barreiro Housing project exemplifies this approach that enables architecture to
retake a leading role in urban change.
The consistency of monotony

Ulmeiras Housing
Location Loures / Intervention Refurbishment/Upgrade
/ Use Housing / Total area 3,850 m2

The scenario of massive and seemingly

endless replication of efficient housing typologies with ornamental peculiarities is representative of the homogeneous and insipid sea of
sameness that portrays the housing market. But
to oppose the conceptualization of the urban
substance as a linear cumulative process of already
totalled ideas and processes regarding historically and technically typified models does not
inevitably implicate a breakdown of the existing
housing paradigm. The Ulmeiras project aims to
trace a path of critical resistance that accepts and
respects poorly conceived architecture without

abdicating of the necessary architectural propositional agenda. It conjures an approach that binds
together a tactic of differentiation of housing
typologies with a manoeuvre of external visual
effect (balcony) that enhances the spatial possibilities for future tenants.
The supremacy of the social

Pvoa de Santo Adrio Market

Location Pvoa de Santo Adrio / Intervention Change
of Use/Upgrade / Use Mixed-use Development (Commercial and Offices) / Total area 11,400 m2

Architecture cannot simplistically be interpreted as a trade-off between capitalist development and social welfare the relationship of
architecture with neoliberalism is not reduced
to the polarized stances of unreserved complacency or romantic resistance. To advocate the
prominence of the social sphere in the hierarchy
of architectural priorities does not imply a severance from the market forces. On the contrary, it
should implicate an investment in architectures
vital role of building-up compromises between
stakeholders with inherently opposing understandings and interests regarding the city: In
order to embody public concerns, architecture
has necessarily to mediate private interests. In
the case of the Pvoa de Santo Adrio Market, a
mixed-use public/private venture, the addition
of extra volume enables the preservation of the
existing building and, ultimately, brings life into
an otherwise depressed urban social ecology.
Degrowth?

Odivelas business incubation

Location Pvoa de Santo Adrio / Intervention Change
of Use/Upgrade / Use Mixed-use Development (Commercial and Offices) / Total area 11,400 m2

If Modern Architectures mainstream

avantgardes are inseparable from 20th century
growth paradigm and state driven urban
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operations, how can progressive views of architecture emerge from the declining patterns
observed in the economic, political, urban and
ecological realms? Architects should avoid the
temptation of considering the meagre prospects of our financial future as a motive for an
architectural detachment from the speculative
and profit-driven business model: Real game
changing possibilities in city development
are more likely to be effective when emerging
from within the conditions established by the
existing mechanisms of urban production. In
the Odivelas Business incubator project, the
flexible mechanisms of economic and financial interpretation were absorbed as a potential and genuine source of architectural power.
One must not forget that the aim of architecture is to progressively build up alternative
futures, not to envision alternative presents.
CrisisLess Desire

Odivelas Market
Location Odivelas / Intervention Refurbishment/
Upgrade / Use Mixed-use Development (Commercial
and Offices) / Total area 12,300 m2

One important idea to be kept in mind

is that there should be no preset or automatic effect of the context of Crisis on societys expectations regarding architecture and
the built environment. The Troika enforced
implementation of politics of austerity,
notwithstanding its deleterious repercussions
on urban subsidies and social standards of
living, do not lessen individual and collective
aspirations regarding the space they inhabit.
And given the lack of investment, cities are
now more in need of architectural agency
than before: Crisis demands architecture to
become a more effective engine of transformation. In the Odivelas market, the project was
driven by an amplification of design ambition.
It progressed from an initial clients intention
of simple renovation to the addition of a large
floating balcony to the existing building that
resolves inherent functional problems while
providing much-needed extra inner areas and
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as well as an exterior public space open to

communal appropriation.
Ruthless Pragmatism

Santo Antnio dos Cavaleiros Housing

Location Loures / Intervention Refurbishment/Upgrade
/ Use Mixed-use Development (Housing, Commercial
and Offices) / Total area 8,000 m2

Given the dramatically adverse context

that has halted the construction industry and
the real-estate sector, the aptitude of enabling
of a project, of drawing up a commission,
of having a client is an important engine
of urban vitality and therefore a valuable
architectural asset. If the future of the urban
sphere seems to be increasingly dependent on
an architectural ability to focus on the preconditions that enable it, lobbying for urban
transformation is to become a top priority for
architects. However, placing the laws of the
system in the designs inception should not
mean a turn towards an opportunistic architectural practice. It should be about ruthlessly
expanding the possibilities of the architectural spectrum while maintaining a critical
stance. In the Santo Antnio dos Cavaleiros
project for instance, the painting of the
faade in vibrant gold colour is an ironic take
on the concept of the architectural icon and
intends to subvert the widespread mantra of
rehabilitation in contemporary design.
Designing without shaping

Barreiro Business Incubator

Location Barreiro / Intervention Refurbishment and
Change of Use / Use Offices / Total area 6,300 m2

To bring life back into an abandoned

infrastructure is probably one of architectures
most challenging tasks. Even more so when the
cut-rate budget offers very slim prospects of
producing any adjustment to the already built
form. However, despite the obvious predisposition to converge architectural thought into
the modelling of shape, design practice can still
have a vital role in the urban sphere even if the

external physicality of things remains roughly

the same. Proposing minor adjustments can
trigger other possibilities of use and attract
investment. However, it is important to reject
the concept of architecture as a mere managerial
facilitator of the urban substance: Architecture
has to exceed the role of mere conveyance of
flexible space use options, and to unremittingly
seek to transgress and subvert established guidelines. It was the compromise between these two
opposing forces that allowed the occurrence of
the Barreiro Business Incubator.

The pervasive modernist urban utopia that

thrusted creative action seemed to be out of
pace with societys predisposition towards
urban and social restructuring. But given everincreasing immediacy of the employment of
sprouting technological advances, the concept
of utopia seems to be mutating: It is losing its
naivet, but gaining agency. As a result, todays
most visionary or futuristic proposals appear
to be much closer to its prospective feasibility
than to an idyllic or artificial scenario, and the
concept of utopia now seems to accommodate
its etymological opposite: real implementation. In the case of the Coimbra Business Incubator, the modern utopia is already built, and
the project is not about its material rehabilitation or refurbishment... Rather, it is about the
binding of design with the conjuring of tactics
for occupation and investment strategies that
will enable its use. 46.H3

Utopian Redux

Coimbra Business Incubator

Location Coimbra / Intervention Silos and Offices
refurbishment / Use Offices / Total area 18,300 m2

Arguably, 20th century leading architects

were trying to change the world too fast.

Beyond crisis
Loures city hall

T i a g o M at i a s

Alderman for Urbanism

The participation of the municipality of

Loures in the Portuguese representation at
the Venice Biennale occurs during the review
and public discussion of its main instrument
for managing the territory the Municipality
Local Development Plan.
At a time when interests act quickly on
issues that occur mostly in major urban
centres, how can this document facilitate
interventions that introduce positive reactions? The challenge that is being proposed
for the Municipality of Loures as part of the
participation at the Venice Biennale could be
one of the answers!
In a moment of near paralysis in construction, it is interesting to rethink the priorities
of intervening in the territory. Ensure better
quality of public space and better public

facilities; complete unfinished housing projects

(also a result of the economic difficulties of
this sector) are priorities in city planning.
The Lawful expectation of seeing built
the green spaces, playgrounds, schools or
a sports facility, that were patent in the
drawings of the urbanization plans when a
person purchases a house, may even become
a requirement of the residents for a better
quality of life.
The needs of citizens and politicians are,
nowadays, so different from the past. Loures
has, beyond the structural imbalances of a
city belonging to the Lisbon metropolitan
area, with an excess of dormitory areas that
need balancing, a lot of unfinished construction that might have a solution.
The theme proposed to Loures Convene
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the Collective aims to initiate and coordinate procedures that allow the conclusion
of an incomplete building whose works have
been suspended and which have not seen any
expectation of being taken over. Thus, this
subject is most current in the context of the
reality of our territory.
Convene the architecture, through the
redefinition of existing uses and often deteriorated and abandoned spaces can, and should,
be synonymous of transformation and revitalization of our territory, in order to have more
balanced urban experiences in the future.
The Municipality of Loures still believes
that this is a possible way for the transformation of urban territories, and the opportunity
presented by this project being developed
in the scope of Portugals participation at the
Venice Biennales with the coordination of a
team of designers and developers, should be a
vehicle able to produce great transformation.
But what is really crucial is the chance to
experiment with new forms of urban intervention, meaning that for different urban
situations there should be innovative ways
of acting.
Beyond the crisis and beyond the pause
or halted construction developments, the key
signal is that we mustnt stop and there are
many ways of dealing with the same issues
in a broad partnership, and liaising with
the agents that intervene on the territory.
Therefore, the population as a critical mass
of these territories is an agent who can never
be forgotten and must always be part of the
urban equation.

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Rehab