Lagarteiro is a portuguese neighborhood, located in Oporto, and built in the late 60's as part of a complex response from the local government to the inumerous people that needed a home. This particular neighborhood was... [ view full abstract ]
Lagarteiro is a portuguese neighborhood, located in Oporto, and built in the late 60's as part of a complex response from the local government to the inumerous people that needed a home. This particular neighborhood was built for those who couldn't afford a house of their own, therefore they had been completely vanish from the city and placed in cheaper outskirts of the city. Still today is visible the rural context of this part of the city, has it is the lack of quality neither in urban or architectural context. Mobility, in other words the ability to come and go to other parts of the city still remains a challenge. The buildings of the neighborhood reflect a usual model at that time, the higher number of levels without (legally) needing a elevator, a rational area distribution, a random relation with the lot and his topography, poor construction and materials, closed on itself, with no links or integration purpose towards the city. Few to nothing has changed since the 70's and the lack of interest or investment in that area of the city raised the issue. Its became a place of the poor ones, of those without any link to society, the place where we do not want to go. In the late 00's an effort to fight the lack of quality in the urban context and to embrace the public space quality as a mean to improve and integrate the people that life there. This was a first step for this people feel like true citizens and for us to recognize Lagarteiro as a part of Oporto, a part that we do want to visit.
This context where Lagarteiro neighborhood finds itself as well as its poor relation withthe city motivates its choice as study case. In order to realise how the urban and architecturalintervention may change this paradigm that defines Lagarteiro neighborhood a analysis towards three parts will be developed.
The first part is to understand how this habitational type, a post-world war inheritance,as the problems they originate that directly reflect in the urban as social context. Theloss of social side of the public space is the main teaser for, in a second part, to rasethe question about how drawing (design) and architectural project can give back thepublic space to the contemporary city, specially regarding challenges andmethodologies that the architect has to deal. In that way, will be approach some intervention references, in the urban domain point of view, with the purpose to clarifythe intervention process as well as the huge importance has a social regenerator, as acohesion and integrational element in the urban context.
The third part is dedicated to the study case’s analysis in sight of the approachedreferences, and the guidelines they give. A focus to the needs and fragilities of thesite, as the interventions that occured since the Lagarteiro construction, will work asbasis to find key points that may potentiate a new urban dynamic and framework holdby the body spine that the public space can representative.
