(Re) Desenhar a Habitação no Centro Histórico: Projeto de Reabilitação de uma Casa Burguesa do Porto

Abstract

The study object of this dissertation is the rehabilitation of a bourgeois house in the Historic Centre of Oporto. In order to achieve this goal, we developed a research process considering both the theoretical, conceptual and the applied scope, as well as the correlation between them, which led to the presentation of the rehabilitation project of a building located in the Ribeira (São João Street and Mercadores Street). Thus, we intended to answer the following question: How can we redesign Oporto´s housing in the Historic Centre? While searching for the answer the complexity of the problem became apparent due to the convergence of different, and many times conflicting factors, such as, the historic legacy (bourgeois house and Historic Centre), the state of the patrimony, the different approaches on rehabilitation, legal constraints, and the current housing market and its demands. In this context we found the need to formulate a second question, subservient to the first, revealing the strain between the past (the historic legacy of Oporto), the present (the pressures of the housing market) and the future: How to design the memory for the future? While redesigning the bourgeois house in Historic Centre of Oporto, the author, in the epicentre of the project, must solve the dilemmatic tensions with a good deal of creative freedom while being limited by all matter of legal, pragmatic, technical and constructive issues. The accommodation programme is at the heart of this process, articulating it with a concept (idea of the project). This dissertation stems from two components. The first consists on the literature review, and the subsequent debate regarding the central themes of rehabilitation and the bourgeois house of Oporto, which are also shown in the comparative study of three similar projects - Ferreira Borges Street Building (Ascoral Arquitectos), Conto House (Pedra Líquida) and Miguel Bombarda Street Residential Building (Paula Santos Anrquitectura). The second component hinges upon the applied practices derived from the conclusions learned in the previous analysis of a real example, established as the expression of a programme and concept (idea of the project) presented in the first chapters, and developed through the rehabilitation of a bourgeois house located in the Historic Centre of Oporto.