Arquiteturas em Xisto Transmontanas: Caraterização e Registos Para a Sua Reabilitação

Abstract

Located between the mountain ranges of Marão and Alvão, the villages of Ermelo, Pardelhas, Vila Cova and Mascoselo, are part of protected nature zones by the Natura 2000 Network and the Alvão Natural Park. By their distance to urban centers were able to, over the several hundred years of their existence, preserve a rural way of living, nowadays extinct, which is reflected in culture, economics, religious traditions, crafts and vernacular architecture. This harmony between Man and Nature is reflected by the work of local materials, in this case, schist, granite and wood. This Architecture without Architect is registered only through the popularity of Ermelo that even with this fame and tourist legal "supports", suffers the same abandonment and neglect of other villages. Forgotten either by the State or by its younger inhabitants, it becomes increasingly difficult to find examples of these vernacular architectures that are not in ruins or grossly distorted. The present Dissertation is a record of constructive and architectural features of these vernacular buildings as well as the anomalies that they suffer, and aims, first to collect this information, scarce in bibliography, and secondly to contribute to the preservation of this heritage in decay, through rehabilitation and reuse. In a third part is presented a case-example of a schist house and the possible chances of intervention, in order to discuss the implications, both architectural, constructive and structural of different ways to intervene.