Lecture III: time practice – part I

Apresentação efetuada em "ITEMS+ International Tandem Event Micro Series “Theory & Design for the Built Environment”, Heidelberg, Alemanha, 202

To design with time manifesto

Project Lab2PT – Landscapes, Heritage and Territory laboratory – AUR/04509 with the financial support from FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) and co-financing from the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007528, whithin the framework of the new partnership agreement PT2020 throught COMPETE 2020 – Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Program (POCI)

Mean time: seven ways to look at time through mobility

This paper’s idea was triggered by the exhibition “Cedric Price: Mean Time,” presented at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal. Starting with the premise that mobility is a contingent (Till, 2009) act, this text looks at the different time(s) created by this contingency. The seven time(s) here considered are: Suspending Time, Free Time, Expanding Time, Distorting time, Folded Time, Loosing time, and Living time. Through specific “spatial stories” (de Certeau, 2002) each time is explained, in their features, unfolding how time-mobility shapes the way we create different appropriations of space, transmuting not only places, but also the relationship between ourselves and the other

Practices of deviating: questioning the ways we research

What do we research? Why do we research? How do we research? For whom? What kind of relationship is the one between the professor and the student? What is the significance of this relationship, namely in constructing and/or destructing students’ trust in entering into the unknown? What is the relevance of seeking the unknown? How can we deepen the relationship that values “I am in you and you are in me” at the basis of the interconnection between these two beings engaged in research? In the professor inspiring their students to find sometimes unknown and under-evaluated bliss? What is the role of this bliss in generating meaningful knowledge? In the end what is meaningful knowledge? What is the role of imagining the impossible to arrive to some kind of unexpected possibility? This paper does not aim to answer all these questions, but they are in the subterranean layer of our thoughts, incessantly seeking and questioning our ways to research. I keep this self-doubt that crosses the what-how-why we research into a realm of (un)conscious seeking. I do not know. My guiding motto is William Blake’s “expect poison from the standing water.” Therefore, much of the time the path is cloudy, precarious, and uncertain, for both the students and me. Although working this way is challenging, it is a driving force for research to be more than a way of commenting on the world but to actually change the world. A sample of this type of query is our practice of researching with our master students in the School of Architecture at the University of Minho where we have been learning the relevance of “inadequacy, intimacy, and intensity” as tools that support the transformation of the ways of research.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Anticipating the unexpected: between desire and alchemy

This paper discusses the practice of the unknown in the realm of research. Why the unknown? Simply stated, it has the potency for actual change. Research tends to be bound to predetermined methods, the means of which knowledge is produced. Here the opposite is explored: how to research with a practice in which both method and knowledge are unknown? It considers two premises: (a) there is an attachment between method and the produced knowledge; (b) if you follow certain and predetermined methods you constrain the knowledge to ‘what you already know’ (past), limiting the possibilities of discovering the unknown. A good example is that important discoveries in science were made by chance or mistake. Here the explored practice contains a strong instability and uncertainty. The experience is unstable; the result is unpredictable and unexpected. In this realm, the predictable and the expected are not synonymous with anticipation. This implies that the challenge is not to anticipate the predictable but the opposite, overcoming the linearity of history and the simplistic views of deterministic cause-effect. The tools for anticipating the unexpected are desire, philia, potency, and alchemy. Desire is explored from the Gilles Deleuze perspective; it is by the means of the process of desire itself that things become actual, which is different from the common notion that considers the desire for something that is lacking, i.e., as an object. Philia, the Greek word for love, friendship, is looked at through the lens of Spinoza, Epicurus, and also Joseph Campbell’s maxim to ‘follow your bliss’. Potency, stimulated by Nietzsche, is the power to overcome what instability, that which causes the judgmental self-talk of wrongness. Developed at the School of Architecture of University of Minho, each tool is explored through innovative research projects that share a common ground: embracing uncertainty, moving forward with no predetermined plan, through which unexpected knowing is created about the everyday places we inhabit. Cedric Price’s (1996) ideas of “anticipating the unexpected” are also integrated into this discussion. Alchemy is the device for continuous transmutation of the ‘me into you,’ the ‘not-known into the known,’ which aims to make a responsible contribution “toward (...) effectively addressing the pressing challenges confronting humanity [places] of today.” Although generated in the field of architecture, this approach could be a catalyst for change in other fields of knowledge.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Devir-paisagem: vincul-ação

"Poster #5 - Requalificar: identidades urbanas e vínculos de paisagem"Vínculo é a palavra catalisadora deste texto. Chegou pelo convite do José Martins, há um mês. Desconhecia-a, nela nunca tinha antes submergido. Amo as palavras, aquelas que já tornei minhas e as que não. Por isso, entrei no devir-vínculo. Vínculo é aquilo que liga: é a corda entre os montanhistas e a montanha; o barco entre os pescadores e o mar; a porta entre o interior da minha casa e o exterior; a margem entre o rio e a terra; o passadiço entre as dunas e os meus pés; o muro entre a minha parcela e a tua; elementos físicos que materializam o vínculo-objeto entre seres identificáveis pela nossa linguagem do ‘Ser.’Vínculo é também relação. Na respiga da teoria da vinculação estabelecida por Bowlby[1], aprendemos que a vinculação “cunha” a relação da mãe com a criança, sendo estruturadora para as relações sociais desta última. A teoria da vinculação é expandível a todo o tempo de vida da pessoa, nas suas diversas relações humanas, bem como na relação com os espaços, lugares e objetos que habita. A vinculação é a relação afetuosa de proximidade. Amamos o que sentimos próximo. Os nossos pais, os nossos amigos, os nossos lugares, as nossas paisagens. Voltamos aos lugares onde nascemos porque o afeto das nossas aventuras iniciáticas nos regozija, nos torna particulares, nos expande também.[2] “Nosso” significa aqui algo que nos pertence e recursivamente ao qual nós pertencemos. É o ser daqui, desta paisagem-vida ou é antes o devir-paisagem? É a paisagem um pano de fundo, ou temos que avançar como Châtelet na música recusando-a como “fundo sonoro,”[3] sendo para quem a ouve a própria atividade?info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The influence of innovation in tangible and intangible resource allocation: a qualitative multi case study

Considering the current turbulent macroeconomic environment, the aim of this research is to explore the influence of innovation in tangible and intangible resource allocation. The literature underlines that organizations are facing a revolution in their business processes. As such, there is a need to understand the value of knowledge resources and to identify ways to manage them. This paper explores the field of resource allocation, namely dynamic capabilities, and highlights the importance of monitoring intangible resources. This research has three specific contributions. The first contribution provides a comprehensive picture of what has occurred in the field of tangible and intangible resource allocation, such as intellectual capital and its importance towards organizational performance. Secondly, it offers evidence about the actual need for performance measurement tools that foster intangible resource monitoring. Organizations devote special attention to market demands which consequently lead managers to adapt their strategies in areas concerning resource allocation. Given this importance, this research, comprising major innovative organizations in Portugal from diverse activity sectors, provides new insights and stresses the importance of tools to follow the overall performance of resource allocation. Managers of innovative organizations recognize the very powerful features of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) in monitoring and linking strategic resources of both tangible and intangible natures. Thirdly, this research, with a view to enrich the field of intangible natures, points out some aspects for future research areas, bearing in mind the relevance of this research area confirmed by managers of the major innovative organizations. Thus, it provides prominent information for both academia and innovative organizations.This paper is financed by National Funds of the FCT – Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology within the project «UIDB/03182/2020

In(c)(v)ite: the in-Between Project

The present paper presents an alternative urban design approach that explores the project as an in- between mechanism. By in-between, we assume that “the project is neither the beginning nor the ending it is just an in-between in places’ time, both past and indeterminate future.”[1] It is an in-between time process that crosses several scales, actors, and places. We found the in-Between Project by searching through the existing cracks [2] in the contemporary built environment – uncertain and abandoned places/buildings and wastelands – generated by four factors: (a) the increasing of a fragile global economy; (b) the recurrent urban transformation processes (such as the over construction of road infra- structures and the cyclic destruction/construction of the old/new housing planning); (c) the absence of activities/production; and (d) the consequent abandonment of buildings and urban plots. Therefore, it was acknowledged that these cracking processes are creating a catalytic effect in the built environment, causing uncertain cross-scaled consequences between time, space, and society such as: not knowing the future of these places, not expecting positive scenarios for these places, not conveying the relationships of these places, and not engaging socially with these places. When addressing this problematic, fundamental questions arise: how can we articulate the (dis)connections created by the existing cracks in the urban environment? How can we transform the waste inherent to these cracks into a life potential? How can we create a viable metabolism with this waste? How can we generate new activities? How can we attract new inhabitants? How can we transform cracks into magnets? In this research, we realised that these questions cannot be answered through the narrow design solutions formalized by neither the conventional object/programmatic approach, nor by the top-to-bottom/bottom-to-top urban strategies, detached from the indeterminate cross time-scale relationships of these cracked places. An alternative urban design approach was required. The in-Between Project is structured using three interconnected concepts: Cite, Recite. and Incite. Cite is to select the time traces found in the place to trigger and ground the design project. Recite is to transform the cited elements into a simple base structure that stimulates unforeseen appropriations and becomes adaptable to change. Incite is to critically imagine future possible scenarios for the created base structure. These ideas are presented, tested, and developed in one specific design research in Azenha do Mar, a remote fishing village on the southwest coast of Portugal. It is acknowledged that the in-Between Project is a simple practice of in(c)(v)itation: it incites the hidden potentials of cracked places and invites human beings to appropriate them in an imaginative and unforeseeable way.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Olhares para a matemática depois de um processo de RVCC

Trabalho de projecto de mestrado, Ciências da Educação (Formação de Adultos), Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Educação, 2011Este trabalho projecto insere-se no âmbito do mestrado em Ciências da Educação e explora a forma de olhar para a matemática pelos adultos no início de um processo de reconhecimento validação e certificação de competências e após o seu término. Inicia-se com uma autobiografia, onde se explora uma reflecção em torno da minha vida profissional, dando principal destaque às minhas vivências e aprendizagens na área de educação de adultos. Segue-se uma reflexão sobre a educação de adultos e sobre a importância da matemática no campo da abstracção do pensamento humano e das suas representações sociais. Terminando com na análise das entrevistas semiestruturadas efetuadas a formadores e adultos envolvidos no processo de RVCC. Os resultados deste trabalho projecto, permitem concluir que existe uma mudança de atitude positiva em relação à matemática depois da frequência de um processo de RVCC. Esta mudança assenta fundamentalmente na capacidade do adulto associar à matemática outras competências para além do cálculo e de se tornar mais consciente para a presença da matemática na sociedade.This work or project is part of the Master of Science in Education and explores the way adults look at mathematics at the beginning of a process of recognition and certification of skills and after it ends. It begins with an autobiography, where there is a reflection about my professional life. I also emphasize it with my experience and what I learnt in the field of adult education. What follows is a reflection on adult education and the importance of mathematics in the field of abstraction of human thought and its social representation. It ends with the analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with teachers and adults involved in the RVCC process. With the results of this work/project, we can conclude that there is a positive change of attitude toward mathematics after attending a RVCC process. This change is based primarily on the adult's ability to associate mathematics with other skills beyond calculus and become more aware of the presence of mathematics in society

Integrative approach to productive urban landscapes: the case of Porto city

We start by acknowledging the potential of two specific urban blocks in Porto, the 12 casas block (between Rua da Alegria e Rua de Santa Catarina) and the Fontinha block (between Rua de Santa Catarina and Rua do Bonjardim). These are two of the biggest blocks of the city. Consequently, they have the largest open inner-soil. These private plots are remnants of the 19th century city structure were each inner plot of land was used to cultivate food for the houses’ inhabitants. Today, they are mostly abandoned and are defined in Porto’s master plan as places for “urban development”. This implies that they are available land to build buildings and roads. Under the argument of opening the inner-blocks to increase public space, these great free land will became fragmented in small gardens or parks. In this process their fertility value for cultivation is replaced by the market value for building. This paper questions this embedded urban planning idea “that unbuilt soil is soil available to be built”. We defend that this is an anachronic idea, supported by the continuous process of expanding the urban over rural land, and the densification of the city, by building in almost every “available site”. Secondly, we look to the past of Porto’s city to demonstrate the historical evidence of an existing productive landscape in which there is a close connection between the buildings and inner-plots for familiar agriculture. Thirdly, we explain how the two blocks presented in the first section have already in themselves the seeds of potential for an integrative approach to an urban productive landscape, that connects the inner-space of the buildings with the open-space of the plots, generating a process of transformation that may be expanded at the scale of the city. Two experiences are already being practiced in these blocks: one is Quinta das Musas, a collective association that has been progressively cultivating the inner land of the blocks gathering several plots belonging to various landowners; and the other, a pilot project “FARM” that aims to integrate pioneering research trades with the cultivation of the land and the potential for public use. Since ancient times, soil´s value was dependent on its fertility. When urban planning policies and master plans label a plot as an “urban space with x capacity to be build”, the price of land is abruptly inflated. City is a collective space and the distortion that the classification of urban soil has in its value, must be faced critically. This mindset needs to be reframed, in an era were climate change and the quality of life in cities, including the environmental one needs to be faced seriously. An integrative approach to productive urban landscapes that connect the local with the local, (“zero” distance between consumption and food production, for instance) and the local with the global is a challenge second to none