The main challenge of this Cost Action is to create a transnational network that gathers European researchers carrying studies on Middle-Class Mass Housing (MCMH) built in Europe since the 1950s. This network will allow the development new scientific approaches by discussing, testing and assessing case studies and their different methodologies and perspectives. MCMH has been generally underestimated in urban and architectural studies and there is still a lack of comparative analysis and global perspectives. The number of transnational publications and scientific meetings has also been scarce. By crossing different approaches focus on Architecture, Urbanism, Planning, Public Policies, History, Sociology new concepts and methodologies will arise. Therefore, the Action aims to produce a wider understanding of MCMH sprawl, deepening on-going researches and focusing on the existing case studies. The current methodologies, surveys, catalogue and contextualization allow an initial mapping of relevant case studies, their diverse degrees of resilience and how they have been adapted to current (urban and social) conditions. It is intended to develop the knowledge of the interaction between spatial forms, behaviours and satisfaction and to combine methodologies of architectural and social analyses. The Action will be developed by three Working Groups, coordinated by a Core Group: Documenting the MCMH; Development of a specific set of (new) concepts for MCMH analyses; Leverage contemporary architecture interventions and Public Policies. In the Action will be involved researchers related to Mass Housing, MCMH Architecture and Urbanism, Planning and Public Policies, Sociological studies, Architecture History and Modern Heritage.

The goal of the project is to carry out a compared analysis of Middle Class Mass Housing (MCMH) in Europe, Africa and Asia, introducing new case studies to deepen the existing research, made with successfully tested methodologies: survey, catalogue and contextualization of housing complexes built between the 1950s and the 1980s in Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Angola and China. It is intended to identify the existing housing and urban models and to map the changes after 50 years of use in order to understand how they have adapted to current (urban and social) conditions, and to support future actions. The case studies are located in the peripheries of Milan, Antwerp, Lisbon, Luanda and Macao, in areas that they helped to consolidate, and were selected by: 1) scale; 2) number of inhabitants; 3) accessibility; 4) urban and architectural quality. Based on on-going national studies, a cross-reading that reflects the expansion of cities in the context of demographic growth after WWII is proposed. The impact of residential models developed by architects in European contexts will be analysed, and also their transposition to territories formerly under colonial rule. The studies that analyse the transcontinental housing panorama under an architectural and sociological perspective are confined to some regional cases, not assuring a more global vision that includes: 1) the historical description of the physical evolution of the dwelling, the building and the neighbourhood; 2) the survey and analysis of their inhabitants' profile. We want to assess the resilience of these complexes, including testing and proposing ways to prolong its life by updating the functional organization of the apartments, by renewing the infrastructures and building systems and by outlining the profile of its residents. Special attention will be given to the way of promotion (public or private) and its effect on the profile of the current inhabitants (pioneer, recent, immigrant). The neighbourhoods are char...

Objectives 1) the analysis of the infrastructural process from the mapping of 3 specific typologies of colonial Public Works (PW), which will be addressed in the perspective of its archival, documental and cartographic processing, and of its historiographical description?  2) the identification and critical analysis of the state of these infrastructures (reuse, strengthening or decay), after the 1975 independences. The research is based on the hypothesis that the colonial territorial infrastructure leave resilient marks in the postcolonial built environment, and that this impact should be analyzed in such a way as to support future actions. The Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino owns an essential part of the document collection concerning the colonial PW of the 19th and 20th centuries. The archival processing, cataloguing and description will be a responsibility of the project, making them available to the scientific community. After the mapping, recurring to specialized cartography, all the documentation will be gathered, and casestudies will be selected, based on specific criteria (strategic relevance, scale, impact in the built environment). Its detailed and historical description follows, in order to create inventory records in the web platform HPIP of FCG and referencing in the GIS, together with the verification of the conservation state and with the surveying of the postindependence interventions.

The research aims to survey, catalogue and contextualize housing projects in Lisbon, Luanda and Macao, built between the 1960s and the 1980s, which stood out for large scale occupation and high number of people housed. It is intended to identify the existing housing and urban models and to map the changes after 40 years of use in order to understand how to adapt to current conditions (urban and social) and to support its future.Methodology: Initially it begins with a detailed description and historical process, creating records of inventory, referenced to the Geographic Information System, and the redrawing of projects (for comparative analyses of the urban design and of the housing cell unit). It follows a visit to the complexes to verify its conservation state, experiencing the urban situation and describing the profile evolution of current populations. Questionnaires will be released for occupation and social satisfaction reporting (district/dwelling). Qualitative interviews to deep-rooted groups (social and cultural groups of belonging) will allow evaluating the integration in the city. The visits will be recorded on video for "future memory" and a documentary (three 30 minutes short-films) will be produced. In the last year, workshops will be implemented with the communities, involving architects, students, residents and local institutions, proposing architectural interventions based on historical and social analysis and in the Portuguese tradition of participatory architecture.