Re[Habit]Arq: Contemporary Premises for Design, Construction and Rehabilitation of Collective Housing at Controlled Costs

With the acronym Re[Habit]Arq, the aim is to emphasise the need to architecturally rethink and reinterpret collective housing and its tectonics, taking into account contemporary demands for sustainability in construction and the problem of lack of housing. Aware of the need to focus the gaze and narrow the field of action and production to a more local context, some of the collective social housing buildings in the Municipality of Guimarães built within the scope of the Housing Development Found [1969-82], will be used as case studies. This work construes in detail some of these neighbourhoods, which represent a sample of the public housing stock (1750 dwellings) and deserve special attention regarding their tectonics, spatial configuration and rehabilitation methodologies, which only prioritize the energy improvement of the facades, depriving the interior of buildings. Therefore, the aim is to (1) Simulate the application of more flexible and reconfigurable alternatives for organizing residential spaces; (2) Explore different scenarios for the improvement and rehabilitation of building envelopes, comparing the effectiveness throughout the life cycle of these alternatives and prioritizing prefabrication, modularity, reversibility, simplicity and the use of local materials. Believing that this rethinking of the public housing stock could contribute to a greater housing supply, this will be an ethically responsible, socially important and economically relevant purpose, which will constitute a significant contribution for Guimarães to implement systemic actions, locally designed and transversal to different areas of activity.

PHD CANDIDATE

Ana Barbosa

SUPERVISORS

Paulo Cruz, Bruno Figueiredo & Marie Frier Hvejsel

YEAR

2023