Abrigo dos pequeninos. Desenhar espaços para crianças. Projecto de recuperação do espaço infantil das crianças das ilhas de S.Vitor

Abstract

"Let the architect be so - a man amongst men - a space organizer - a creator of happiness." Fernando Távora The document herewith presented is a synthesis of my academic and professional experiences throughout the last 6 years. The challenge I propose myself to is to draw up a project for the restoration and expansion of Rogério de Azevedo's project: Abrigo dos Pequeninos (1935). None the less, it is not my ambition to seek perfect and/ or timeless solutions for the making of children dedicated spaces. I do not believe in perfection nor the quest for it. What draws my attention though, is to identify and clarify a local social penury - the lack of a variety of cultural spaces dedicated to children and the existance of an empty kindergarten, which the local community craves for. Therefore, the purpose of the developed work is to raise awareness to this theme, bringing solutions in to motivate the debate on children dedicated spaces in the Fontainhas area. The idea is born of my international experience, taking special note of the following ones: a study trip to Japan and an internship in Copenhagen with Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter. Given the fact that the origins of the explored theme is a set of spatial experiences directly connected to the reality of the visited places, standing out the Fuji kindergarden, the Munkegaard School and the Amager's Children Culture House, it became logic that the final expression of this personal study, would be an academic project set in a real context. Consequently, and derived of an introspection and analysis of what these experiences represented, the project process goes through understanding, both the infant along with all its implied physical and psychological complexity and the architectonic development around the theme. The project is not real, but the necessity for it is. I will be more fortunate to learn from the process of designing it, than the children of S. Vítor because of the absence of it's construction, or any other project that should be more successful in the exercise of shaping the local needs into a building. What is then an architect if not "a creator of happiness"?