STREETS4ALL is a project funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) led by the Instituto Superior Técnico – University of Lisbon and the University of Coimbra (Project Ref. PTDC/ECI-TRA/3120/2021). The project aims to evaluate how to allocate road space dynamically over time according to multi-modal and multi-functional street uses. Urban space is often underutilized. Traditional designs plan the road network to support maximum demand. While in peak hours, streets can be saturated, in non-peak hours, space is often idling.This space has been inequitably preferring motorized modes, in particular cars. Today, many cities target the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by favoring people-centric planning after decades of car-centered planning.

The objective of the project includes proposing methodologies for site selection of equitable allocation of space, street design and technological solutions that can adapt its function and use equitably for all modes over time, according to some periodicity (e.g., an hour, few hours, or days) and at pre-timed periods (e.g., peak or off-peak, day or night time).

You can access the website of the project by clicking here.

“Siza Barroco” é um projecto de investigação que visa pôr em evidência a relação entre a ideia de Barroco e a obra de Álvaro Siza. O que com este projecto se pretende é, justamente, pôr à prova esta possibilidade interpretativa que, a nosso ver, trará ganhos de conhecimento consideráveis na compreensão: do método de projecto de Siza, do seu percurso ao longo do tempo, do metamorfosear da sua obra ao longo desse tempo e da própria metamorfose dos seus projectos. Cientes de que a colocação lado-a-lado da ideia de Barroco e da arquitectura de Álvaro Siza trará também ganhos de conhecimento do lado da revelação do que é afinal o Barroco, cremos, igualmente, que a investigação programada será uma ocasião particularmente fecunda para compreendermos mais e melhor o que tem sido descrito, com certa relutância do autor, enquanto “o génio de Siza”. Desdobrar – à maneira de Deleuze – a obra arquitectónica de Siza e procurar, primeiro, observá-la e, depois, dá-la a ver através de uma lente barroca é o objectivo primeiro e último da investigação proposta.

BRIDGE is an action-research project aimed at developing an approach to integrate different forms of knowledge and action in order to reduce wildifre risk. Local populations are not mere repositories of information from generalist information campaigns. Rather, they hold experiential knowledge that should be crosschecked with scientific information for a more detailed risk assessment. In the action plan, rural fire risk mitigation measures need to be incorporated into local governance logics and the daily routines of forest users.
At the methodological level, the development of this integrated approach will be implemented through a participatory-action research (PAR) applied to a specific territory, Monchique region. Participatory action research is understood as a process by which science and scientists, regional and local governance agencies, decision-makers and public officials, communities and local leaders cooperate with the dual objective of: i) assessing the vulnerabilities and resources of their territory; and ii) identifying the various risk reduction alternatives. This local involvement is a way to build knowledge with the community, raise wildfire risk awareness and foster a more enduring commitment with wildfire risk reduction policy. BRIDGE’s
participatory action research will be applied to a pre-selected pilot-area, Monchique region, and will comprise two major moments: one of participatory socio-territorial diagnosis and a local capacity-building process embodied in the form of a collaborative laboratory. The activities developed in the collaborative laboratory of BRIDGE (Innovation Lab for CBDRR) will be materialized through the adoption of collaborative methodologies, namely the participatory mapping. The involvement between local communities, local/regional technicians and scientists will occur through the construction of a local scaled map where relevant elements for wildfire risk management, such as socio-ecological vulnerabilities, local resources and capacities, will be identified. This map will subsequently be adapted to digital format so that it can be used for other purposes, such as spatial planning and wider public awareness.The development of BRIDGE will be ensured by a consortium of three institutions, respectively the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), coordinator of the project, the Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil (LNEC), and the University of Algarve (UAlg).

The overall objective of TRUST is to explore the enabling conditions for sustainability transition(ST) initiatives, the extent to which such transitions support social innovation (SI) and the role of SI in generating transformative change, through actors’ networks and agents of change. The key research ideas build on ongoing research projects that explore the transformative potential of ST(eg TRANSIT,ARTS,GUST,TESS,SINGOCOM or TURAS). Social learning and innovation are important factors in transformative process for building social-ecological resilience [WeAn10],[West13]. In TRUST focus is on ST initiatives, supported by SI, that drive transformative change in social-ecological systems(SES). The long-term target is to contribute to create locally based networks for ST and SI strategies to enable change in approaches, routines, practices and mind-sets to create transformation for sustainable driven societies.

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? Why do they choose to live in Siza-Pritzker houses, and what does it mean?

The aim of the SPHERA Erasmus + proposal is to facilitate interdisciplinary studies in health engineering and related areas with a focus on improving existing conditions and in-depth knowledge of how to use medical equipment, deliver effective modern sanitation and other public health interventions in urban and rural areas in low-income and transitional economies. The project will build as well capacities that may reduce disaster risks and contribute to better and more targeted public health based relief following disasters. Through the creation of multidisciplinary postgraduate programs in Nepal and Uzbekistan, following the Bologna model (competence-based approach, learning outcomes and compatible with ECTS), the structure of the programs will lead to comparable degrees that will allow mutual recognition and increased students and teaching staff mobility. The partner Universities will be assisted by the EU Institutions to achieve this goal. A series of compulsory modules will develop teachers’ and students’ knowledge and skills in a range of areas.
They will able to gain an understanding of the wider issues surrounding public health and how they impact on policy and practice. The ultimate goal of the project is to prepare a new generation of specialist engineers and technicians who will have major positive effects in both the health technology industry sector and the public health system through the appropriate management of emergency situations and safe use of medical technology.

Funding: European Union Erasmus+ Programme
Duration: 2016-2019

The Observatory is a platform for the aggregation, development and divulgation of studies and data on urban mobility, road safety, and road user behaviour patterns, sponsered by the Portuguese Automobile Clube (ACP). Its consulting body is composed by the main entities with responsibilities in the sector, such as the Mobility and Transports Institute, Taxi and public transport organizations, highway operators, police forces, , road safety authorities, the National Infrastructures Company, and sectoral NGOs such as bycicle associations and environmental NGOs. Prof. Fernando Nunes da Silva is the scientific coordinator. The Observatory has conducted studies on the profile of portuguese drivers, the current situation of road safety, and mobility in Lisbon’s central axis.

Funding: Portuguese Automobile Club (ACP)
Duration: 2017-
https://observatorio.acp.pt/

This is an H2020 funded project with the duration of 4 years starting in 2017. The aim of the project is to challenge the dichotomy of urban and rural spaces where urban is associated to innovation and consumption while the countryside remains a place for food production, nature conservation and recreation. As the stereotype holds the differences are blurring. This project aims to understand what are communalities and conflicts in order to move forwards in bringing out synergies and new development models. The partnership includes the following institutions: Aberystwyth University (UK), Baltic Studies Centre (Latvia), ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, European Secretariat (Germany),  Natural Resources Institute Finland (Finland), OIKOS – Development Consulting (Slovenia), Peri-Urban Regions Platform Europe (Belgium), Policy Research Consultancy (Germany), University of Gloucestershire – Countryside and Community Research Institute (UK), University of Lisbon – Instituto Superior Técnico (Portugal), University of Pisa (Italy), University of Valencia (Spain), Wageningen University (The Netherlands) and Federal Institute for Mountainous and Less-Favoured Areas (Austria).

The participation in this project links into the findings of the PERIURBAN project lead by IST/CERIS and into the work developed in the context of COLEGIO F3 of the University of Lisbon.

Funding:

European Union Horizon 2020 Programme

Duration:

2017 – 2021

rural-urban.eu

RMB is focused on the refurbishment of the existing housing stock, as well as conversion from other building typologies such as warehouses, offices and public building with special focus on the post WW2 modern era. The goal is to initiate an educational framework of common definitions, approaches and methodologies on a European level, based on existing research, educational practices and reference projects in the program countries and associated states. The follow up is a Joint Master program on reuse, offered by a consortium of five European universities.
Project Partners: HS OWL, Detmold School for Architecture and Interior Architecture – Germany (Applicant);ITU, Department of Architecture –Turkey ULisboa, Instituto Superior Técnico –Portugal; Universidade de Coimbra, Faculty of Science and Technology – Portugal; University of Antwerp, Faculty of Design Sciences –Belgium; DOCOMOMO International –Portugal and associate partner ´the energy and resources institute´ (TERI) – New Dehli, India.

Funding:

European Union Erasmus + Programme
Duration: 2016- 2019

www.rmb-eu.com

This is a continuing line of collaborations with government institutions and municipalities in the field of public procurement and the definition of evaluation criteria for public contracting and public-private partnerships.
The new “Sintra proximity hospital” intends to partially relieve the overcrowded Amadora Sintra-Hospital. The study, conducted in collaboration with the municipality of Sintra, aims at defining objective and transparent criteria for the selection of the winning bid.
The Central Administration of the National Health Service (ACSS) tasked the group with a similar study, concerning the public procurement associated with the new “Hospital Lisboa Oriental”, including a second stage of revision after the project was relaunched recently.
The group also collaborated in a study on the location of the new Oeste Region Hospital.

This research focuses on health promotion through prophylactic and therapeutic spaces of Health and Well-being Bathing Facilities (HWBF) and their urban transitions as a key space for the resilience of CTS. The sun and beach tourism product is currently facing the vulnerability of ultraviolet radiation exposure and the increasing temperatures related with heat waves. It is grounded on architectural morphology innovation, and aims to identify positive and negative spatial components and requalification strategies in the CTS and HWTS. It follows a methodology based on post-occupancy evaluation aiming to identify morphological rules concerning the user’s satisfaction.
The research fits within the Horizon 2020 programme’s challenge of health and well-being, combined with the research priority of climate change.
It is argued that the assemblage of coastal tourism and health and well-being tourism is of strategic importance for Portugal, a country with the potential of becoming an inclusive health and well-being tourism destination, combining the coastal talasso bathing with the existing mineral springs on the continent and islands.

Funding: FCT (SFRH/BPD/94371/2013)
Duration: 2013-

This project, for the University of Lisbon Administration and the Municipality of Lisbon, is focused on creating a cohesive and well-structure network of public spaces, regulate motorized traffic, and provide guidelines for the correct integration of future building within the site.
The plan’s intervention area is composed essentially of the University of Lisbon’s central Campus. The space is characterized by monofunctional spaces with very seasonal uses, but also by heavy through-traffic that crosses the heart of the Campus, generating pedestrian-vehicular traffic conflicts. The public space lacks coherence and legibility, as interventions from different decades failed to uphold the original vision for the complex.
After a prolonged characterization and strategy stage, the plan has now moved into the proposal stage. In articulation with the the University’s Administration, the Municipality, and the different faculties, the plan establishes a cohesive system of public open spaces, that promotes soft mobility and the integration of the Campus’ existing buildings, as well as proposed extensions.
The street network is interveened so as to moderate traffic and create a set of sections where priority is given to pedestrians.
Surface parking is virtually eliminated, being replaced partially by the creation and expansion of underground parking structures.

Funding: Rectorate of the University of Lisbon
http://www.cm-lisboa.pt/viver/urbanismo/planeamento-urbano/planos-de-urbanizacao/planos-de-urbanizacao-em-elaboracao/elaboracao-do-plano-de-urbanizacao-da-cidade-universitaria

IN_LEARNING focuses on active learning environments (ALE) in the framework of secondary and higher education. ALE corresponds to high performance learning settings, i.e. spaces designed to suit new approaches to learning and teaching beyond those typical of structured classes of standardized duration with breaks in between, in a way to facilitate student-centered and collaborative learning, to promote and foster informal contacts and continuous learning experiences to their students.
IN_LEARNING research was concentrated on the formulation of a theoretical framework between the relations of the design of learning facilities and the way people learn in formal and informal modes; the survey and assessment of ALE, concerning formal and informal modes of learning; and the development of a specific space-use analysis tool (SUA), based on the exploration of video technology for images in motion. Video data is crossover with “Space Syntax” models. Emerging spatial patterns of space-use and knowledge-sharing are identified by combining spatial description with the motion graphics and post processing analysis.

Funding: FCT (PTDC/CS-GEO/1010836/2008)
Duration: 2010-2013
http://in-learning.ist.utl.pt/

Land use and land cover change (LUCC) is a topic of major importance at global, national and regional levels, due to the impacts it can cause in ecological, environmental and socio-economic systems.
The main objectives of this project were:
(1) to provide a reliable and clear picture of the changes that occurred in land use and land cover (LULC) in Continental Portugal, in the decades 1980s, 1990s and 2010s;
(2) to identify and understand the major driving forces of those changes;
(3) to form the main alternative scenarios of LUCC until 2040, using a spatial model; and
(4) to use all this LUCC information to study energy demand and Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions and removals.
The first main challenge in LANDYN comes from the characterisation of LULC and LUCC in a large area and in three moments in time. To address this challenge an approach based on spatial probabilistic sampling was adopted, using a stratified sampling for estimating LUCC. Then the base LULC maps were derived through visual interpretation of aerial photography. At the estimation stage, instead of using the usual Horvitz-Thompson estimator, more complex estimators were investigated (e.g. ratio estimators). Identifying LUCC driving forces in Continental Portugal LANDYN also bring some innovative aspects:
(1) the use of self-organising map, a data mining technique, to deal with the high dimensional facet of the driving forces dataset;
(2) combine this data mining approach with a qualitative analysis based on circumstantial evidences and inferential reasoning, as a means to address the difficulty to analyse and represent driving forces.

Funding: FCT (PTDC/CS-GEO/101836/2008)
Duration: 2010-2014

Lx LAB project raised up due to the importance of monitoring as a process of evaluation in continuum in the validation of strategies for the sustainable development of the city.
The project intents to understand how to structure a tool for evaluation (monitoring) in continuum the tourism and its impacts in the historical center of a city. The project has the following main goals:
1. Identification of the main urban, economic, environmental and social impacts of tourism in historic centers;
2. Identification of the main indicators for monitoring tourism and its impacts in historic centers;
3. Clarification of the purpose of monitoring: Monitor for what? For whom? Who is monitoring?
4. Identification of the necessary information for the monitoring of tourism and its impacts; characterization of the type of information, data existence and its suitability; identification of the methods and entities (current and potential) responsible for its production and updating.
5. Identification of solutions that allow in continuum evaluation of tourism and its impacts on historic centers in their different dimensions (urban, economic, environmental and social) and the availability of information to the society.
It is needed an integrated long-term planning and management approach to maximize positive impacts and minimize the negative impacts of tourism, faced with a recurrent reality defined by the development of public policies almost exclusively reactive.
Thus, it is intended to understand how an in continuum evaluation tool can be structured to contribute to the monitoring of tourism and its impacts in the historical center of a city. For this purpose, the historical Alfama’s neighborhood, in the center of Lisbon, was selected as case study.
It is assumed that this monitoring tool should be managed by the local authority, to effectively contribute to the definition of municipal policies that promote sustainable development of the city. On the other hand, it is intended that this tool encourages the participation of citizens, namely in updating the information, taking advantage in some cases of applications running on mobile devices.

Funding: Ceris/IST
Duration: 2018

The strong relationship between tourism growth and urban rehabilitation in historic centres has led to a development of research’s focused on assessing the impacts of tourism on urban regeneration, particularly at the level of the economic and social components. However, the study of the consequences that the growth of tourism has on the built-up, as well as the integrated analysis between the intervention in the built-up and the dynamics of the housing market and demographic are small.
It is in this context that this research is developed, whose objective is to understand the dynamics of transformation at the level of land use, building, real estate market and population in a historical neighbourhood. For this purpose, the Alfama neighbourhood was selected in Lisbon.
It is also objective of this research project to analyse the context in which these transformations occurred, that is, what effects the public policies of territorial planning, tourism, urban rehabilitation and housing had on the physical changes of the neighbourhood and if its objectives were achieved.
(Funded by “Ações Exploratórias Transversais, CERIS 2017”; Instituto Superior Técnico, CERIS– Centro de Engenharia Civil, Investigação e Inovação para a Sustentabilidade).

Funding: Ceris/IST
Duration: 2017-2018

The main challenge in this project (2012-2015, funded by FCT) was to investigate the application of equity in land use planning, particularly in the urbanization process, and how to overcome the lack of effectiveness of the instruments provided in the Portuguese legislation for achieving it, namely the land readjustment (LR) instruments. Not only institutional factors concerned with the legal framework of the planning process itself were analyzed and assessed, but also the economic and financial factors embedded in urban planning were considered. In the end of this investigation, with a deeper knowledge regarding the national and international practice on LR, it would be of interest to proceed with the testing and calibration for the proposed model components, relating them with several intervention typologies. A bigger attention should be given to urban rehabilitation operations which, in Portugal as in other European countries, will henceforth become the most frequent urban interventions and which present specific challenges both regarding management as well as financing.

Funding: FCT (PTDC/AUR-URB/120509/2010)
Duration: 2012-2015
http://projectopercom.tecnico.ulisboa.pt

EWV studied the architecture built in Africa “Lusófona”, mostly in Angola and Mozambique, during the modern movement period in his possible continuity more or less explicit with the reference constituted by the Brazilian production. This research found an important contribution in the knowledge as it concentrated on both the survey of the existing building types and the development of a technological know-how. The methodology established a set of criteria for the selection and description of buildings and urban spaces. Research integrated different information sources (bibliography, archives and direct observation), through the elaboration of new drawings of the selected works, describing them from the site description up to the technological detail. Those drawings were then used for the construction of all the possible specific interpretative essays. Research outputs include a book, an Online Database – Website; an International Conference: “EWV_Exchanging Worlds Visions”, Escola de Arquitectura da Universidade do Minho, Guimarães, 7-8 December 2012 and a International Workshop: “(re)USAR O MODERNO – Identificar / Documentar / Conservar”, Faculdade de Arquitectura e Planeamento Físico da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mozambique, 26-30 March 2012

Funding: FCT (PTDC/AUR-AQI/103229/2008)
Duration: 2010-2013
http://ewv1.ist.utl.pt

The goal is to study healthcare buildings from 20th century and their role in the welfare society policy, approaching future challenges driven by the developments in technology and medicine, and the need to assure a sustainable built environment (ToKiKi14). Responding to health necessities, health care buildings are a guarantee of civilization. Subject to permanent alterations, in the context of the society transformations, these buildings will be transformed, deactivated or even demolish in a near future. In the last 50 years poverty and famine have declined whereas healthcare, education and emancipation have improved significantly worldwide. All this was possible due to modernity’s devotion to innovations in science and technology. Yet this striking progress has created incredibly damaging effects as well. The effort to renew the world with pre-existing structures goes against the devotion to the constant new, which is still dominating our behavior. The relevance has to do with the developing of a meaningful knowledge for a responsible practice of planning and design addressing environment and cultural sustainable concerns. It will be a significant contribution to knowledge in the healthcare buildings and its rehabilitation, as it concentrates on both the survey of the existing building types and the development of a technological Know-How as well as considering conservation and rehabilitation strategies.

Funding: FCT (PTDC/AUR-AQI/2577/2014)
Duration: 2017-2020