Research Catalogue

Este artigo incide sobre práticas e estéticas de produção informal do espaço público, na cidade do Porto. Enquanto formas de participação na construção da cidade, por parte dos residentes, estas práticas são analisadas à luz do conceito de direito à obra, de Lefebvre, e da sua proposta de reapropriação do espaço. O registo visual de ambientes urbanos e a escuta e interpretação dos discursos de moradores, permite resgatar estéticas e práticas em desaparecimento. Afirmando a relevância da cultura visual como ferramenta de participação, pretende-se contribuir para a inscrição destes repertórios visuais no imaginário político da cidade. Em processo de publicação na revista Espaços Vividos, Espaços Construídos. Universidade de Lisboa

This chapter examines the promotional image of the city of Porto, cre-ated and disseminated in the last decades, as a means through which core capi-talist values, objectives and operative logic are disseminated and naturalized in public space. Mirzoeff’s conceptualization of visuality, as the aesthetic means through which dominant systems seek to present their legitimacy as self-evident, informs our examination of branding, architecture, and its visual reproduction, as discursive practices employed in the deployment of what we will designate as a capitalist visuality. Local tradition and cosmopolitan modernity are identified as the two main con-cepts in the promotional strategy designed to enhance the city’s appeal, which representation relies to a large extent on architectural aesthetics, namely vernac-ular heritage, and international architectural icons. The chapter analyzes the re-currence of these concepts in branding, promotional imagery, and architectural management.

Acknowledging the importance of dominant global discourses and aesthetics in the validation of a hegemonic urban development model that reinforces urban inequality, this paper addresses the need for narratives and representations that challenge current paradigms. Taking the city of Porto as a case study, we hypothesize that within this context, the acknowledgment and valuation of informal dwelling may provide relevant contributions to the construction of such alternative discourses. Delving into the aesthetics and the implicit politics of informal dwelling, we examine its contributions towards aesthetic and social diversity, and the opportunities it presents for participation in the construction of Western urban landscapes. Contrasting the emanant visual character of informal dwelling with hegemonic representations and re-branding narratives in the city of Porto, the paper brings light to a ubiquitous, yet disregarded reality that may bring crucial inputs to a purposeful debate on diversity, equity, and democracy in urban environments. Aknowledgement This article is part of the research project “Visual and semantic identities of the city of Porto: an ascertainment of the contributions of informal dwelling”, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the European Social Fund (ESF), under the grant PD/BD/150641/2020

This paper addresses the role of brand design in the validation of hegemonic narratives on the identities of cities, issued by place brands and local administrations. Drawing on concepts from Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse analysis, we address place identity(ies), as floating signifiers, appropriated by global and local discourses in order to gain hegemony, through the naturalization of their narratives. We examine these mechanisms at work in the visual branding of the city of Porto, as a case study. Through a critical analysis of the brand’s rhetoric and implementation, issued and controlled by the City’s Council, we identify a set of problematic equivalences that symbolically entail the obliteration of public debate. As a counterpoint to the Council’s allegedly consensual narrative, the collection and analysis of appropriations of the “Porto.” brand offers an under-acknowledged map of local dynamics, revealing a city where antagonistic views coexist. The above evinces the need to issue alternative representations that challenge hegemonic discourses; as well as the need to promote critical thinking and public awareness, namely of the mechanisms that work to reduce them. Acknowledging the potential of design as a social tool,we issue two recommendations: that in order to cultivate a paradigm of plurality and citizen awareness, the word representation is employed instead of identity, when referring to representations of places; and that in order to produce representations that effectively reveal and enhance local singularities, the retrieval and re-creation of local aesthetics and narratives is a privileged methodological choice. This paper was presented at "Digicom- 5th International Conference on Design and Digital Communication" and published in Vol. 19 of the Springer Series in Design and Innovation. Ana Miriam Rebelo, Heitor Alvelos, Álvaro Domingues Advances in Design and Digital Communication II. DIGICOM 2021. Springer Series in Design and Innovation, vol 19. Martins, N., Brandão, D. (eds). Springer, 2021 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89735-2_52 Acknowledgements This article is part of the research project “Visual and semantic identities of the city of Porto: an ascertainment of the contributions of informal dwelling”, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the European Social Fund (ESF), under the grant PD/BD/150641/2020. The following people generously contributed to this paper by allowing us to reproduce their images: Inês Barbosa, Laura Gonçalves, Luís Camanho and Pedro Ferreira. To all of them, many thanks.

Acknowledging the historical dominance of architectural imagery by objective, disembodied approaches and its influence in our understanding of designed space as well as architectural practice itself, the paper addresses the need for a different perspective. Within the phenomenological approach to designed spaces, this paper interrogates the role of photography in reflecting designed spaces as embodied, humanised environments, where reality takes place. The writings of Pallasmaa, Zumthor and Böhme support the theoretical framework of discussing photography’s contribution to an understanding of built environments as places for embodied experience. The works of Rut Blees Luxemburg and Guy Tillim, two contemporary photographers, are examined as examples of perspectives in which the representation of atmospheres is central to the reflection on built environments as a multisensory perceptive experience. This paper was presented at the International Conference on Design History and Studies 2018 and published in the proceedings book. Ana Miriam Rebelo, Fátima Pombo Back to the Future. The Future in the Past. Conference Proceedings Book. Oriol Moret (ed.). Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona. 2018. ISBN 978-84-9168-156-4

This paper presents the results of a photography based research project on the representation of architectural space. From a phenomenological perspective, the investigation aimed to find a visual approach that would contribute to the representation of architectural space as a place for experience. Trindade subway station, by architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, was chosen as a case study, functioning as a laboratory for the experimentation of visual strategies that emphasize the physical presence and sensorial perception of the photographer, as well as the presences of users. This paper was presented at the 5th International Conference "On the surface: photography on architecture" and later published in Sophia Journal Ana Miriam Rebelo, Fátima Pombo, José Carneiro Sophia Journal, 4. Visual Spaces of Change: Unveiling the Publicness of Urban Space through Photography and Image Pedro Leão Neto, Iñaki Berguera (ed.) Scopio Editions. 2019.

Porto Informal is the ongoing visual archive of the research project Visual and semantic identities of the city of Porto: an ascertainment of the contributions of informal dwelling, conducted by Ana Miriam Rebelo, in the context of her PhD in Design. This visual ethnography project documents informal participation in the production of public space, stemming from domestic space, in the city of Porto. A typological organisation of the images enables the comprehension of different aspects that characterise informal practices and aesthetics in these places. A functional typology allows us to see which elements constitute this type of urban environment, ranging from houses to post boxes. A processual typology distinguishes different types of gestures through which these places are produced, from construction to personalisation. The aesthetic typologies, of a more interpretative nature, propose a synthesis of the aesthetic and semantic character of these places, supported by the analysis of informal conversations held with residents, about their dwelling experiences.

"Clareira" is the result of research on the photographic representation of architecture, as space to be experienced. The project takes Trindade Metro Station, in Porto, as a laboratory for the experimentation of visual strategies that emphasize the photographer’s physical presence and sensorial perception as well as the presences of users. This public space, routinely crossed and appropriated by a great diversity of people, is observed in its relationship with the human and environmental elements that permeate it. Taking a purposely subjective stance, the work was inspired by the writings of Peter Zumthor, namely in its search for a positioning of the self, and an attitude towards reality, marked by an attentive and available physical presence. This mode of being in space was the basis from which to develop a photographic approach that seeks to communicate subjective experience. At a time when images are increasingly replacing the experience of architectural space and becoming a basis from which to think architecture, this project seeks to contribute to the affirmation of photographic practice as a research instrument, reflecting on the experience of built space, but also actively participating in the construction of the environments in which we live in, as architecture is also constructed through images. "Clareira" is a printed publication, comprising a series of formally diversified elements exploring different themes. It was exhibited in its full form at "Encontros da Imagem" (2019) as a "Photobook Awards" finalist, and was part of "Cityzine Collection", an exhibition of alternative publications exploring architecture, city and territory, through photography (2019). This set of images is a short selection, curated by Pedro Leão Neto and Né Santelmo, exhibited at the "Bienal de Fotografia do Porto 2019", at Aliados Metro Station.

This visual essay addresses interconnected aspects of the relationship between the place brand “Porto.”, commissioned by the Porto City Council, and urban protest: how the visual branding of the city is used to naturalize, thus legitimizing the Council’s vision and its development plan, inhibiting public debate; how it simultaneously and involuntarily enables protest, by providing material for subversive actions; and how debate is reclaimed through the use of an instrument with unifying ambitions, aimed at consensus. Through the analysis of these relationships, we address both intended and unintended roles of design in the shaping of democratic life in urban contexts. The essay interweaves photographs of the brand’s placement, mainly by the author, with a collection of images documenting examples of its subversions in the city’s streets, by different authors who have kindly permitted the author to use them in this essay. Published in Monu Magazine #34 – Protest Urbanism Upmeyer B. (ed). Board Publishers. 2021. Acknowledgements This article is part of the research project “Visual and semantic identities of the city of Porto: an ascertainment of the contributions of informal dwelling”, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the European Social Fund (ESF), under the grant PD/BD/150641/2020. The following people generously contributed to this article with their images: 3 Pontinhos, Inês Barbosa, Luís Camanho, Pedro Ferreira and Pedro Figueiredo. To all of them, many thanks.

Territorial brands seek to project idealized versions of the identities of the places they represent, presented as unifying and consensual. However, cities are made up of diverse and often antagonistic realities and visions. Taking the “Porto.” brand as a case study, we propose a counterpoint to a narrative that has become dominant, through the non-exhaustive mapping of typologies of appropriation of the brand's graphic identity. This exercise enables the recognition of local dynamics around the brand, revealing the coexistence of different perspectives on the city model it represents. Through this identification, we propose a reflection on the functions that are performed by the design of territorial brands, deliberately or contingently, when appropriated by different agents. This article is part of the research project “Visual and semantic identities of the city of Porto: an ascertainment of the contributions of informal dwelling”, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the European Social Fund (ESF), under the grant PD/BD/150641/2020

This project emerges from my personal experience and observation of the fast-paced transformation process that has marked the last decades of the city of Porto. As a resident and a regular wanderer, I am often struck by the brutal evidence of a process driven by anonymous actors, who build and erase, buy and sell without warning. Simultaneously, I gather evidence of human gestures, traces of individuality, and signs of care that imbue these spaces with meaning. These small yet vibrant presences, towards which my perception has sharpened, appear to me as antidotes, as small resistances, in an urban environment oscillating between semantic poverty and overwhelming spectacle.

"Forma" is a visual inquiry on the limits of perception and understanding. It is about the moments when it seems we can grasp, understand, but the truth eludes us. About the hesitant movement that comes with this moment, about that mystery. Weight, strangeness, loneliness. Enchantment, silence, and a promise of something hidden, something that is far away, either too big or too small. About our perception and understanding of space. What is the void, what exists between things, what separates or unites them? Trying to show space, imagining shapes. In search of that emptiness, I found other things difficult to see, opaque things, abysses, darkness and too much light. I keep looking, in the night, in the snow, in the fog.

“Paredes-Meias” revisits the itinerary proposed by project “Peregrinações” produced and presented at the event “Manobras no Porto”, in 2012. Working form testimonies form participants, which are also residents of the parish of Vitória, a visual and sonic narrative was constructed, that proposes to discover fragments of the memories and daily lives of different generations of inhabitants. This short animated film intends to document experiences of this place, intersecting past and present in a common space, where collective and individual memories build the identity of the place. Because this identity is also made up of routines, gestures and paths repeated day after day by successive generations, this path is proposed as a cycle, with no beginning or end, in which the spectator can enter and exit at any given time. The photographs evoke the memory of these places, visible in buildings, streets, and walls marked by time, in which the traces of individual passages are inscribed. Small animated moments were drawn over them, sketched and simplified, volatile as memory. A sound recording of the itinerary was added to this visual component, complementing it with a layer from the present time. "Paredes-meias" was awarded with the Best Documentary Project prize, by Manobras no Porto 2012 Direction: Ana Miriam & David Doutel Photography: Ana Miriam Animationo: David Doutel & Vasco Sá Sounf design: Pedro Pestana

Sossego City is a disorderly, disproportionate, and noisy territory. Its urban fabric is a patchwork, torn by motorways and railways, where the frailty of small, improvised constructions and the heavy solidity of the infra-structures that dominate the landscape, involuntarily connect. It is a scenery made of contrasts, built in different scales, modes and times. This series is about a mode of inhabiting this strange and unpredictable territory, about the ways through which its inhabitants domesticate it and make it their own. Surprisingly, the word “sossego” [quiet] often comes up when they talk about the places where they live. Thus, in these images, urban speed and violence are a backdrop against which a sense of calm and time can nevertheless be perceived. These are small spaces where rural and urban, public and private blend together, signs of a mode of living that doesn’t correspond to the contemporary concept of urbanity. Degradation is obvious, and these places, located in eastern Porto, are likely to disappear. But something about this way of life, with obvious roots in a rural past, seems to question the future. “Sossego City” is a perspective on a moment of the history of this territory, and a reflection on the hints it may provide for a reinvented way of inhabiting urban space. Sossego City was first exhibited at Centro Português de Fotografia, in 2012.

“Limiar” is a personal approach to Rem Koolhaas's “Maison à Bordeaux”, exploring the house's physical and psychological boundaries and the subtleties of our relationship with space. Between interior and exterior, between intimacy and exposure, between light and shadow. This series was produced during a workshop held by École des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux and OMA