The InCITIES project aims to achieve the transformations of HEIs and their surrounding ecosystem centred around on cities’ needs of inclusion, sustainability and resilience. Its specific focus on widening countries (Portugal and Slovakia) will allow to overcome structural, sociocultural, economic, political and institutional barriers to transformation fostering. Addressing the European-global challenges of cities, InCITIES has 4 objectives: 1) Map institutional transformation strategies towards research-based sustainable universities including open science and career opportunities. 2) Build a long-term network of participating HEIs and surrounding ecosystems based on integrated knowledge HUBs. 3) Increase scientific, technological and staff capacity by sharing the best pedagogical, research, management and administrative practices in the consortium, and piloting leverages to widening HEIs. 4) Promote digitally driven universities by creating an open and innovative education and training platform in synergy with the project research and innovation agenda on inclusive, sustainable and resilient cities. The 5 methods jointly developed will set the foundation for the consortium role model: 1) Method for a common research map, 2) Capacity building actions based on the Learning by Developing pedagogical model, 3) Capacity building in talent scout and career opportunity strategy (attractiveness of research careers, including open science incentives), 4) Capacity building on equality, diversity and inclusion, 5) Methods to address enablers and barriers to integration of the InCITIES Alliance. From knowledge co-creation to joint production between European HEIs, surrounding ecosystems and citizens’ involvement, integrated actions play a key-role in achieving the consortium objectives. Capacity building actions implemented are a step towards the submission to the European Universities Initiative; it will strengthen the ERA, the EEA, and Europe’s approach to coope...

The general aim of this project is to study the transformations in Siza’s collective housing over the past 5 decades, focusing on the linked analysis of: a) the projects (social and private housing) and the respective social and urban condition framework; and b) their residents and the relationships they develop with the projected space. The research follows an intensive methodology: comparative study of 3 Siza’s cases/collective housing projects. Each represents a moment on the architect’s professional life and corresponds to a moment in the life of society and the city; the 3 together, and their temporal sequence, represent (part of) Siza’s trajectory and that of contemporary society and of the city. The cases are: 1. Bouça/Porto - started following the 1974 revolution. Symbolising the Revolution, Architecture and the Right to the City when it was in decay; 2. Terraços de Bragança – Chiado, Lisboa, started in the 1990s. Symbolising the national real estate boom, modernization launch and procrastination of urban renaissance; 3. Building 611 West 56th Street – Hell’s Kitchen, New York, began in the 2010s. Symbolising hyper-globalisation, the rise of the city, financialisation of real estate and the incontestability of the value of architectural authorship. The greatest innovation in the proposal is in the temporal sequence of the 3 cases, which allows us to answer the following questions: what has changed in the production and appropriation of Siza’s houses and how do these changes relate to social transformations and the architect’s career? Who promoted the housing at the different times, locations, to what end and for whom? What are the formal, functional and contextual differences/similarities between the projects? How have transformations in the urban context impacted on the occupation of dwelling in social, use and value terms? What is the social profile of residents, their evolution and differences between cases? How do these residents live in Siza’s houses? W...

The research project 'The Critical Monumentality of Álvaro Siza – Projects of Urban Renovation after the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition' aims at identifying, characterising, debating, and reflecting upon the works of Álvaro Siza, within the context of the urban policies launched in Portugal in the early 2000s. This research project ‘The Critical Monumentality of Álvaro Siza – Projects of urban renovation after the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition' seeks to articulate the relationships produced by urban interventions and buildings upon the specific contexts they engage with. The distinctive feature of this project is as a critical analysis of the idea of monumentality in Álvaro Siza’s works. Three overlapping analytical focal themes will be used as methodology: territory, urban and architectural culture, and social impact of interventions. For the purposes of this research, from the study cases - Portugal Pavilion of Expo’98 (1998), Atlantic Park in Vila do Conde (2005), Leça da Palmeira waterfront in Matosinhos (2007), Municipal Library in Viana do Castelo (2008) and Nadir Afonso Contemporary Art Museum in Chaves (2015) - will be drawn a comparative hypotheses in order to measure the impact of the project and the architectural culture resulting from these experiences. Comparative assessments will also be made with other Álvaro Siza projects that were part of similar urban renovation initiatives, carried out after other major events from the last decade of the 20th century, e.g. the Meteorology Centre in Barcelona (1992) designed for the Olympic Games, and the Hannover Pavilion projected for the 2000 World Exposition, and actually rebuilt in Coimbra, in central Portugal, in the course of the Polis programme for that city.

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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 research project called 'Grand Projects - Architectural and Urbanistic Operations after the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition' aims at identifying, characterizing, debating, and reflecting the urban policies and architectural works produced in Portugal after the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition (Expo98). The study is grounded on the conviction that the effects of this 'urban laboratory' cannot dispense a predominantly analytical and interpretative work, capable of mapping and qualifying the urban, projectual, and technological culture implemented in Portugal in the two decades that followed the Expo98 ventures. In 2008, a decade past over the Lisbon Exposition, the Lisbon Municipality presented its 'General Plan for Waterfront Interventions' (Plano Geral de Intervenções da Frente Ribeirinha - PGIFR), aiming at establishing new urban continuities, by extending the model of the exposition from the West part of the city to the East (between the Trancão River and the Pedrouços dock), through the adaptation of some harbor infrastructure under the state administration. The dynamics generated by PGIFR framed the development of projects of both great scale and major strategic importance, e.g., the Champalimaud Foundation in Pedrouços district, designed by Charles Correa (1930-2015); the National Coach Museum in Belém area, designed by Paulo Mendes da Rocha (b. 1928); the EDP Headquarters at Boavista embankment, by Manuel (b. 1963) and Francisco (b.1964) Aires Mateus; the Ribeira das Naus public space, by João Ferreira Nunes (b.1960) and João Gomes da Silva (b.1962); or the future Cruise Terminal in Santa Apolónia, by Carrilho da Graça (b.1952), currently under construction. The research project 'Grand Projects - Architectural and Urbanistic Operations after the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition' seeks to deepen the relations produced by urban interventions with specific contexts in which they operate on. The distinctive feature of this project consists in the launching of a critical ...

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...

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.

The project's overall objective is the study of residential trajectories of the inhabitants of Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA), born between 1935-1985. However, given the need to deepen knowledge about the ongoing changes that could form the basis of a restructuring of the logic of the contemporary metropolis, priority will be the analysis of the younger generations: those born between 1965-1985 and whose entry in adulthood and residential autonomy will likely already occurred after the EU accession, the emergence period of the main indicators of modernity.