Bom dia, Casa do Vapor! transforming space | open perspectives | common public space Background
Cova do Vapor is a small fishermen community settled in the Almada County. Situated opposite of Lisbon, at the bank side of river Tejo, it has an industrial history ( one can see a shipyard, freight harbour and manufacturing) and it is governed since 1974 by the Portuguese communist party. Although the coastline is less developed compared to Cascais, Sintra and Belém with mainly worker or fishermen settlements and small farms, it is very closed to the city of Lisboa and in fact, the land is under high economic pressure. The coast of Caparica is interesting for promoters, investors and the tourism industry. Since the first constructions in 1940, due to the high erosion on the estuary of river Tejo, some of the houses erected on the sandbanks had to be moved back several times to more stable ground, suddenly found themselves on communal or private owned land. Due to gradual extensions or adaptations, each house looks different, revealing the sense of form and creativity of the house owners, who are themselves the constructors, with help from the neighbors. The common, informal architecture in Cova results from the absence of a legal and officially applied cadastral map and urbanist rules, which would lead to the permission for residential usage. Part of the area where the settlement moved to it has been declared protected as a natural reserve and now it’s not allowed to build anything on it – not even for the private proprietor. This is in a sense a protection for the already existing constructions, since building permission for development projects from investors shouldn’t be given in this area. The instance of this irregular status of “double illegality” led to a good working, self-organized structure and social conscience in the community. The „Associação de Moradores da Cova do Vapor“ not only organizes various activities in benefit of the local community but also substitutes the lack of municipality presence by taking responsibility for the development of a well-working public infrastructure, namely water
and electricity system as well as paving of the main road or drain water systems.
Cova do Vapor Beginnings “Temporary actions and participative building projects work as new forms of architectural interventions, that often open a social process while transforming the public space into a stage, or at least a better working common ground – for residents and visitors.” 1 The story begins with the case of Guimarães (Portugal), the European Capital of Culture 2012, where a scenography for the Curators’ Lab has been collaboratively built with exyzt and students from local universities. In exyzt collective people from different nationalities work together under the same principles of sharing knowledge, abilities and interests. It is a platform for the realization of multidisciplinary projects in which cultural and social behaviors, shared ideas and innovation intermingle in an elaborate although temporary commons space and which is collectively build. The exyzt working forces are composed by several initiatives. Among them is constructLab, a common space around the practice of construction. The main idea is that the process of construction becomes an occasion to meet and communicate with the mediation of tangible materials (mainly wood) and physical labor that can activate both body and soul. Thus, the space becomes active and the project actually starts, before the of-
ficial public opening of our work that can be then experienced by a wider public as an installation or scenography. So far the conceptual phase and the activation phase of a project are connected by the building period, through the construction of the physical space but also of a context and a related dynamic of people. The Construir Juntos project in Guimarães was a first intervention of exyzt in Portugal, building up a team of almost 50 interested people who shared together a one month long collaborative building experience. The project was conceived in a way that almost 100% of the wood material would be re-usable. Afterwards the team self-organized the transportation of the same material through the country, which became the core structure of “Casa do Vapor” both materially and conceptually.
Construir Juntos in Guimarães
evolution that helps architects to develop solutions in an informal environment and let non-architects enhance their ideas with a little more expertise. One of their focuses is to get a better basis to the community where they intervene and to find well working solutions with the help of the residents.” 2 During summer 2012 while the Curators’ Lab in Guimarães was active, Alexander Römer (exyzt collective) met local people who were seeking to generate and self initiate a community based project in the village of Cova do Vapor. Thus, a process of team building and project self-management began, based on the construir juntos team experience, improved and extended by people from Lisbon. The idea of Casa do Vapor came up during a first site-visit guided by one of the core team members, a resident of Cova do Vapor. Through this local connection and the previous work of TISA, the people in Cova were already a lot more open to temporary intervention ideas and the contact to the local community was quite easy to achieve. Casa do Vapor is an extension of the local association and works as a collectively shared space with an emphasis on creativity, activity and local production. It is placed on an empty triangle of sand between the village and the beach. It is composed by different small wooden structures and linked to an already existing open square used for
Casa do Vapor in 2013 Casa do Vapor [steam house] is situated in Cova do Vapor on the Atlantic Ocean coast. The small settlement Cova do Vapor had already served as research field and place for an architectural project in 2011, when TISA – the informal school of architecture took place. They mapped the whole village and built a model of it. This work was done with a group of students and pupils from the local area and gave a tool for the inhabitants to initiate a process of legalization of their houses and shelters. It helped half of the buildings of the village to be officially registered in the cadastral map. “TISA is planned as a social instrument for collective
Casa do Vapor many public activities and sports. An abandoned house Casa curva, which was in the past connected with the water-system, will now serve as location for the public toilets and showers units near to beach and will stay as permanent public facility
for the community. The two new wooden buildings for Casa do Vapor are situated along a small wall, which divides the association’s open space from the beach. In-between a small open-air stage was placed. It also serves as a step to access and connect the square on the other side of the wall. These small wooden edifices are inspired by the appearance of local buildings. The functions that the buildings house are a little public library, a bicycle workshop run by Rui,
kitchen won a price in the “Crisis buster” for the Trienal in Lisbon 2013. ConstructLab took place in May. Full daylong educational workshops free of charge were planned in a synergetic manner to the construction-process, which was kids and grown-up friendly. Also, a Portuguese group of urban sketchers followed the building activities with drawing sessions. These local and shared knowledge oriented workshops will be ongoing.
The bicycle workshop
The building workshops
a young boy from Cova do Vapor, and a multiactivity common space with a terrace on its roof. The second one, closer to the little existing association’s building, houses an apertured kitchen “Cozinha do Vapor” that provides low-budget meals for the community and works together with the local restaurant, local producers and food markets. The
A longer-term residency took place from July throughout the summer, bringing international artists and researchers, who stayed for periods of 2 or 3 weeks, living in the Casa do Vapor, working in this unique situation and making it a relevant place to meet and share. Because of the lack of funding (the project was completely self-funded, with reused material from a previous project), lots of difficulties regarding the transport and the search for adequate and appropriate tools and material sponsors, the working process took much longer than expected. A fact that might not be desirable on a common building lot – however in this case it lead to a slow and intense initiation for the project. This fact gave the inhabitants of Cova not only the time to engage, but, as they could feel the lack of financial support, they could even teach the collective ways to deal with this situation! That brought a sense of responsibility, appropriation and identification with the project. Casa do Vapor is almost only financially supported by its “inhabitants” and guests!
The community kitchen
Current situation and future plans for Casa do Vapor
atives. The spirit of Casa do Vapor and many of the initiated ideas are ongoing while found new and more permanent space. Among those, the library has a big success. The so-called Biblioteca do Vapor is now located in the house of the “associations of inhabitants” of Cova do Vapor and while a second section has been opened in a little harbor-town called Trafaria. The two libraries receive a yearly municipal funding which gives the possibility for some people from the area to work regularly and
Casa do Vapor seeks to provide a large bandwidth of activities and through its actors and visitors creates a good working synergy. With its diversity of attractions it acts above all as a local Forum for political discussions and questions about public space and common goods. For the community it is the incubator of ideas, gives new possibilities to the local development and brings together the different groups who are either living the site or visiting the area: fishers, residents, politics, tourists and many more from near and far. It gives a place and strength to the people to start an open dialogue for a possible future of this „not existing“ place. Although the structure itself is conceived as a temporary project, the idea of Casa do Vapor will develop and be transformed. It strives to bring all its initiated activities gain sustainability and be Biblioteca do Vapor permanently embedded in the local territory. In October 2013, the temporary building permission ended and the core “house” structure of receive a small but permanent income. Most of the Casa do vapor had to be dismantled. What we wood was re-used for the third time in 2014, takmanaged to leave in the place itself is an extended ing the shape of a small communitarian kitchen playground for kids and grown-ups with a Tobog- which has been conceived in a collaboration with gan, a swing, a stage-like platform for performance ateliermob and warehouse collective, located in the and benches. Kids developed theater plays and the centre of Terras do Leilo, an informal settlement. local hiphop makers use it to rehearsal. Despite of the irregular proprietary situation of the whole settlement that is mainly build on privateowned land, the municipality supported eventually the project in order to better the precarious living conditions of its inhabitants. The kitchen is built on a small piece of public land and allowed to connect officially the area of settlement to the public water supply.
The extended playground The different actors of the Casa do Vapor project gathered under the newly founded association AED, which is managing projects in the territory of Almada since, taking a mediating role between the municipality and other local associations and initi- Building of the new community kitchen
In collaboration with AED, new projects are planned in the future in the territory of Almada, Portugal, applying and developing the method of Casa do Vapor. Employing socially engaged processes and collective spirit while merging art with life, our focus is to continue to assist the local community in their struggle to self-sufficiency and engage with them in a mutual exchange of learning.
1. Cf: http://linesofflight.files.wordpress. com/2008/03/participation_notes.pdf, 04.06.2013, 16:01 2. Filipe Borges de Macedo. Out of the box. A arquitectura participativa de Filipe Balestra. Lisboa, FAUTL, Setembro, 2011, 15-25
NOTES
Participatory design and building workshops
Skate ramp and pizza oven