The doctoral thesis by researcher R. Bruno Matos, entitled ‘Azenhas e açudes do baixo Ave: contribuição para a salvaguarda, preservação e valorização do património molinológico’, won the Portuguese Association for Urban Rehabilitation and Heritage Protection Prize. The thesis was supervised by professors Francisco Barata (1950-2018) and Pedro Alarcão. An honourable mention was also awarded to the dissertation ‘Water Territory Architecture. Between Endemism and Human Work in the Madeira Archipelago' by Pedro António Almada, a former FAUP student, supervised by Professor Rodrigo Coelho.

Bruno Matos' thesis was written as part of the FAUP doctoral programme and set out to study the Azenhas do Ave, analysing them as “heritage integrated into a river ecosystem, consolidated over centuries, which includes traditional environmental, socio-cultural, proto-industrial, energy and technological values; fundamental in characterising the riverside cultural landscape of the Ave Valley”. Based on architectural design as the main method of analysis, interpretation and proposal, the study puts forward hypotheses about the history, the molinological heritage and the challenges of architectural intervention. The thesis by researcher R. Bruno Matos had already been awarded an honourable mention in the 7th edition of the Iberian Traditional Architecture Research Prize.

In Pedro António Almada's dissertation, developed in the context of the Integrated Master's Degree in Architecture at FAUP, water takes centre stage in an in-depth reading of the Madeira archipelago. The work is based on the ‘study of water architecture in order to understand man's relationship with the territory’, emphasising the ‘hydrographic duality of the inhabited islands’ as ‘revealing urban-territorial trends, confirming that the dynamics of water shape the landscape, from settlement to the present day’.

The APRUPP Prize in the area of urban regeneration and heritage protection honours, every two years, master's and doctoral research work that is relevant to the knowledge of good practices in urban regeneration and the protection of built heritage, both in terms of architectural, heritage and urban knowledge and associated with construction science and technology.