Casa de Agricultor - Transformações no Vale do Cávado / Viver e trabalhar num complexo agrícola

Abstract

This study intends to show the current relationship between architecture, agriculture and way of life of the Entre-Douro-e-Minho's inhabitants, mainly in the Cávado Valley's atlantics lowland. In the last fifty years, we know that the number of people exclusively dedicated to agriculture has dropped dramatically, by virtue of various economic and social happenings, and that triggered a series of changes in lifestyle of these people. Among these changes, we can highlight the change in housing units as household and agricultural production (as additional productive activity) and as spaces for family and domestic practices, relating them. To study these modifications, we had delimited a study area - the Cávado Valley - where we characterized natural and humanized landscapes. The natural landscape was studied using orographical, climatic and hydrological criteria related to the region's flora and fauna. The study of the landscape shaped by man, offering opportunities both domestic and productive, is made through the study of chaos, organizing detailed information about four vernacular architecture of origin, in the parishes of Milhazes and Vila Seca, in a systematic and objective assessment based on bibliographies, questionnaires and interviews in order to understand the then & now changes in farming houses as well as a matrix of the origin of some characteristics that define the vernacular and popular feature of humanized landscape, as a construction of the territory. Finally, we prepared a critical reflection where we reflect on values and assumptions to consider, in which we organized methods to be adopted to improve the living conditions of these farms and housing units, sus taining and enhancing the Portuguese landscape.