A.S.F.P. - Arquitectos Sem Fronteira Portugal
M.I.R.A. - Migration Interface for Reflexion and Activism
Migration: Our ideology stands for a new mentality, presented in our Manifesto.
Interface: A platform that supports and connects different individuals, projects, organizations, ideas… building bridges between them.
Reflection: The process of individual awareness starts by creating an individual consciousness.
Activism: Being active with effective answers to different problems and situations, denouncing, reclaming and redefining.
Cities are our shelters.
They symbolize hope on a better quality of life and opportunities.
For its dimension and infrastructures, they gather different social and economical styles of life, also installed differently in the territory.
Therefore, in the city, physical and social territories are intrinsically connected.
In our cities it’s easy to identify distinctive territories defined by distinctive physical and social characteristics.
The existence of these “borders” can be both consequence of a planed action, or an incremental one.
In many urban systems the solution found for the rising number of inhabitants and the changing patterns of life styles was the expansion of the city through new constructions while its original structures suffered a considerable population decrease.
In many ways, population changes can lead to a cycle of unemployment, poverty, crime and a bigger exodus.
The consequent abandonment and disfigurement of the territory become a problem for those who stay behind, usually elder ones and people with lower economical power.
It is also in these expectant territories that migrants’ communities take their settlement, due to lower incomes and also to its characteristics as free territory “to occupy”.
Our objective with this initiative is to promote a reflection on the city, its physical and social territory concerning the problems of social exclusion, specially associated with migration issues.
Therefore, this competition of ideas has as object of study/intervention, our own city, Oporto, represented by four places:
1- Blocks behind S. Bento Train Station;
2- Viela do Anjo;
3- Urban void near Casa da Música;
4- Rotunda da Areosa.
By choosing these places we’ve searched for identification in our urban territory of different case studies associating public space reflection, citizenship, social exclusion and migrants’ settlements.
The first one is located on the original and historical centre, and is representative of the urban structure of XIX century. The second is also in the historical centre, in a charismatic housing block with a strong sense of identity and it represents a municipal attempt of “opening” it to the city. The third is an expectant space side by side with local icons and contemporary interventions. Finally, last one is representative of the unpredictable results of the incremental city.
Our aim is to encourage participants to propose ideas and concepts for an intervention (temporary or not) on one (or all) of the suggested places bearing in mind a critical reflection on the issues mentioned above.
The proposal must also seek raising awareness and reclaiming social integration, in order to develop a more democratic territory and a more active role of each individual in the community.
Dead Line - 04 July , 2007
Publication - September,2007, in www.mi-ra.in/hostingcity
Exibition - date and place to be confirmed
It is with these initiatives, for which your contribution is essential through the presentation of your ideas, that we aim to appeal the biggest number of people for the causes that we defend, creating a base for an interface relationship beetwen participants and proposals.