Porto Intensive Workshop – Emerging Perspectives on Urban Morphology
Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
3-13 September 2018
The 1813 plan of Porto by George Balck.
The EPUM project brings together different approaches on the study of the physical form of cities through innovative teaching. The project includes two intensive workshops, the first in Porto, Portugal, in September 2018, and the second in Nicosia, Cyprus, in June 2019.
The Porto Intensive Workshop
The main goal of the Porto Intensive Workshop is to effectively combine different morphological approaches – historico-geographical approach, process-typological approach, space syntax and relational approach – in the analysis of the physical form of the historical kernel of Porto and of the main challenges that it faces today. Drawing on the results of this workshop, the Nicosia Intensive Workshop will go one step further applying these combined approach in the design of one particular area in the city of Nicosia.
Week 1
The Porto Intensive Workshop is in two weeks. In the first week different groups of students (coming from the five institutional partners involved in this project, based in London, Nicosia, Porto, Rome and Wien), supervised by different educators, will apply each of the morphological approaches in isolation. The work will be feed by different lectures by educators, practitioners from the local authority and major stakeholders, taking place in the morning sessions. Lectures will focus on the Porto urban form, agents and processes of transformation and on the four morphological approaches. The afternoon sessions will be mainly devoted to studio work. The weekend will include a debate on the main results obtained in the first week, bearing in mind the fundamental goal of the project, and also the preparation of the second week.
Week 2
After applying the different approaches in isolation, in the second week, students, working as one single group, will explore the possibility of combining some approaches. The week will be mainly devoted to studio work. Similarly to the former weekend, the last day of the workshop will be devoted to a debate on the main progresses and difficulties of the second week work and to the preparation of the Nicosia Intensive Workshop.
