Braga | Transcribe Summer Lab

Socio-Spatial Practices in Braga’s Social Housing 

Location: Braga, Portugal
Year: 2017
Participating as a Mentor with André Castanho Correia, Space Transcribers

‘Transcribe Summer Lab: Social-Spatial Practices in Braga’s Social Housing Estates’ was an experimental and theoretical-practical laboratory integrated with the ‘(Re)Writing Our Neighbourhood’ project. It took place over the course of a week in three social housing estates of Braga (Portugal): Enguardas, Santa Tecla and Picoto.  By gathering an intersdisciplinary and international team of students and professionals, the summer lab wanted to open the debate around the reality and problems of these estates.

In order to answer questions like how to map daily realities and how to produce new strategic scenarios for intervention in these social Braga estates?

Thirty-three students and professionals were selected from different countries and disciplinary areas, and distributed in three working groups, one per estate, guided by a team of specialised mentors.

Each group developed a project based on immersive fieldwork, using observation, dialogue, and the recording of problems and potentialities found in the estates as tools of action.

The group of Enguardas housing estate reveals how one can break down socio-spatial and ethnic barriers within the Roma and non-Roma communities of the estate through a socially engaged activity. The group of Santa Tecla housing estate presents and uses the future regeneration project for this specific estate as a starting point to question the current methods of urban regeneration, evident in the imbalance of power relations and the lack of communication between the various stakeholders; in this case, the residents and the city council. The group of Picoto living complex explains the gravity of the infrastructural problems present in the estate and debates the future of this estate from a strategic point of view.

Here the project I mentored, Enguardas Social Housing Estate

Participants
Adam Bellagha
Anthony Faria
Gonçalo Fernandes
José Fernandes
Margarida Maurício
Maria Maia
Mathias Coutant-Tisic
Michelle Lezana
Naima Manfrè
Paula Martins

 

Final Video

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