Monte de Santa Cruz is located in the parish of Barca, in the municipality of Maia, and is characterized by a great diversity of forms of occupation, ranging from housing of various economic levels to large-scale public facilities. Its location close to the Maia Industrial Zone and other employment centers created some attractiveness in this area, which also intensified the processes of densification and expansion of existing buildings, in some cases through highly precarious processes, including the risk of physical collapse.

The Urban Rehabilitation Operation (ORU) was an opportunity to promote the qualification of this area, being a tool for defining a strategy and actions to be implemented in a previously delimited Urban Rehabilitation Area (ARU). This ORU, as it was defined by the Municipality of Maia as “simple” (based solely on the promotion of private investment) – in contrast to a “systematic” one (which would also include public investment) – forced the team to rethink a methodology that could meet the capabilities of each owner, in order to promote safety and rehabilitation of existing buildings, avoiding gentrification and the eviction of residents with less economic capacity.

In this context, the multidisciplinary team of this project sought to rethink the more conventional ways of applying the Urban Rehabilitation Operations instrument, adapting it to this specific territory and seeking its articulation with different financing and support programs for access to housing, in order to preserve the socio-spatial diversity of this area and find personalized solutions for each case, through close monitoring at local level.

This project was developed in two phases, in order to incorporate changes in the delimitation of the Urban Rehabilitation Area, which in the meantime arose with the need to integrate a quarry for its future renaturalization, as well as areas destined for an Urban Park and the Jewish Cemetery, planning the rehabilitation of this area through an integrated process.

Beginning year
2019 + 2021

Duration
90 + 45 days

Team

Production Team

Teresa Calix (Architecture/Urbanism) Coordination
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Ana Silva Fernandes (Architecture/Urbanism) Co-coordination
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Ana Pinheiro (Architecture/Urbanism)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Gisela Lameira (Architecture)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Helena Amaro (Law / Urban Planning Law)

Maria Inês Sousa (Landscape Architecture)
Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto

Mariana Almeida (Architecture/Urbanism)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Consultants

Aitor Varea Oro  (Architecture/Urbanism)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Álvaro Domingues (Geography)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Clara Pimenta do Vale  (Architecture/Construction)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Manuel Fernandes de Sá (Architecture/Urbanism)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Marta Martins (Sociology)

Nuno Travasso (Architecture/Urbanism)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Paulo Farinha Marques (Landscape Architecture)
Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto

Rui Braz Afonso (Urban Economy)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Rui Fernandes Póvoas (Civil Engineering)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto