Earth architecture: between conservation and innovation
Material Culture in the Alentejo
Workshop
Earth architecture: between conservation and innovation Material Culture in the Alentejo
Workshop
8th - 15th September 2024, Odemira
The international workshop ‘Material Culture in the Alentejo - Earthen Architecture: Between Conservation and Innovation’ will take place between 8 and 15 September in the Alentejo region, in the municipality of Odemira, characterised by the long tradition of building rammed earth houses, which largely connotes the landscape and the identity of places.
The initiative, promoted by the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto as the host university, the University of Granada, the Polytechnic University of Valencia, the IUAV University of Venice, the Gabriele d'Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara and the Polytechnic of Bari, with the support of the Municipality of Odemira, will bring together teachers, researchers and architecture students to explore and discuss design methods and rammed earth construction techniques, from the traditional to the more contemporary. Architects Nuno Lacerda, Paulo Lousinha and Mafalda Pacheco will be guests at the session to critique the final works.
The participants in this initiative, 36 students and 14 teachers and researchers, will develop a programme of activities in the Odemira area which, under the guidance of architect Henrique Schreck with a studio in São Teotónio, will lead to the identification of old and new rammed earth constructions. The second part of the workshop involves the students being actively involved in the main phases of construction in a building site in order to realise contemporary rammed earth architecture.
The workshop corresponds to the final phase of a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP), a modality of the Erasmus+ programme that takes the form of an intensive, interdisciplinary course that combines a short-term physical mobility component with an online component, with the aim of promoting innovative teaching and learning methods.
The FAUP team is made up of lecturers and researchers Rui Braz Afonso, Eliseu Gonçalves, Luciana Rocha, Rafael Sousa Santos and students Helena Cardoso Viegas, Mariana Filipa Lima Rocha, Martim Neiva de Almeida Helena Silva Marques, Maria Sofia Saldanha Beltrão, Liliano Rafael Teixeira Ferreira.