Acronym: Lis|PIH

One of Lisbon’s cultural significance lies in the architectural and urban values of a substantial number of early modern residential buildings, “Lisbon pre-industrial housing” (PIH), that build-up urban consolidated areas of the inner city. In the last decades, these buildings have been submitted to demolitions and scattered refurbishment actions with negative impacts, driven by the real estate pressure, related to the growth of urban tourism and to the construction of new high standard residential buildings. Main consequences can be observed at the cultural, environmental and social levels: the loss of cultural significance of the built heritage within these areas, the increase of seismic vulnerability, the raise of materials/energy consumption and carbon emissions caused by demolitions and introduction of systems with high energy needs, the expulsion of residents due to the increased unaffordability of housing, reducing social cohesion in several neighbourhoods of Lisbon. This trend can and must be reversed.  In opposition to past recognition of vernacular/rural architecture in Portugal, PIH is still awaiting a systematised study, which responds to the urgent need for technical knowledge to better support rehabilitation and conservation actions. Lis|PIH follows the assumption that the adequate rehabilitation of the housing stock, by assuring high levels of material conservation, can lead to cultural heritage preservation and enhancement, environmental efficiency and circular economy and to the supply of affordable housing. To this end, Lis|PIH will be developed in the following major stages: SCOPE DEFINITION and SYSTEMATISATION, characterizing these building stock on a systematic and illustrated inquiry; DIAGNOSIS of potentialities and vulnerabilities of PIH focusing on cultural, constructive, environmental and housing values, supported by the use of assessment methodologies and data basis on a set of representative case studies submitted to assessment; DISSEMINATION of results and RECOMMENDATIONS for public policy and urban governance.

Acronym: reHAB

reHAB proposes to investigate the built environment, design and construction processes considering all the participants from architects to politicians and inhabitants. The research addresses rehabilitation, renovation and reuse as actions for a sustainable decarbonized circular design regarding the inheritance of a built world. As underlying action, knowledge on the existent-built environment in mandatory, the reading and understanding of the built legacy is crucial for its transformation and adaptation towards the contemporary demands of comfort, security, safety, wellbeing addressing climate crisis and the human body that emerges from that urgency. Depicting and interpreting modern housing buildings the investigation of the Habitat engages the understanding of collective housing and the domestic space in a holistic approach where public areas are considered signifying for the contemporary reflection on the renewal of local communities’ strengths. Contemporary resilient healthy neighborhoods must address design and social porosity in order to achieve a timeless lesson from vernacular architecture, where the awareness of climate conditions together with the acknowledgment of social sciences built a humanized balanced sustainability. The world has changed and it is mandatory to filing the gap of the massification of modern construction in a moment of history where the housing crisis, the housing models research and the recognition of the quality of public space are here again. Simultaneously, climate challenges are calling us towards the maintenance of civilization, as we know it. Therefore, reHAB proposes to be a contribution where heritage is engaged as cradle for innovative sustainable communities crucial for the future.