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© Parto Atelier

This architectural installation will be activated by Gustavo Ciríaco and Andrea Sonnberger on June 7th.

In Arsenalistas Square [Praça dos Arsenalistas], in the Fujacal neighbourhood — one of the most multicultural areas of the city of Braga — the ground reveals unique traces, the result of its proximity to the River Este. The presence of clay in this area was identified through the analysis of cartographic data and small geological surveys, giving rise to the proposal presented by the Lisbon-based architecture studio Parto. Starting from this natural raw material, the intervention seeks to explore clay not only as a remnant of the site’s distant geological past, but as a symbolic and physical resource for imagining future forms of neighbourhood.

© Parto

The architectural installation begins with the demarcation of a rectangular enclosure in Arsenalistas Square, where an area of 39 m² is excavated to make way for the installation of a greenhouse-laboratory. This temporary structure will use locally extracted clay and will operate throughout the Forma da Vizinhança festival as a multifunctional space: it will host pottery workshops, moments of collective creation, informal gatherings, and exhibitions of objects produced on site. Equipped with a kiln, tables, benches, and shelves, this space will be dedicated to sharing stories and local knowledge, fostering the construction of plural memories through material and manual gesture.
If, over time, countless artefacts have been uncovered beneath multiple layers of soil, leaving behind imprecise traces of what the past once was, Archaeologies of the Future proposes an inverse gesture: to create, in the present, a legacy for the future through collective action. Each moulded piece will call upon different neighbouring hands — skilled or inexperienced, long-established, or recently arrived — to give form to new narratives of neighbourhood, rooted in the territory and open to what is yet to come.

PARTO ATELIER

Parto is an architecture studio that develops projects interlinking innovation, sustainability, and collaborative participation. Through a multidisciplinary practice, it seeks to transform collective ways of living into construction processes that strengthen social and territorial cohesion, integrating architecture, nature, and culture. It aims to inspire sustainable change and generate a positive impact on communities through the responsible use of resources, the careful selection of materials, and active participation. In 2020, it co-founded Upfarming, an NGO dedicated to creating community production centres in various contexts such as neighbourhoods, schools, hospitals, and prisons. The studio has been deepening its pedagogical dimension through workshops like Plantar a Cidade (2022) and Dentro de sala, fora de cena (2023), organised by Garagem Sul CCB, as well as projects such as the Sala Redonda, built with Year 5 pupils at Escola Gil Vicente. In 2024, it led the ManiFesta workshop in partnership with ISCTE, focusing on architecture as a tool for social and environmental intervention.

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INSTALLATION TECHNICAL
CREDITS

ARCHITECTURE
Parto Atelier
(Tiago Sá Gomes, Filipa Neiva, Francisco Pitrez, Maria López, Maria Malato)

PRODUCTION AND ASSEMBLY
Parto atelier
Barcelestufas
ElectroSilva
Katoa
Liarc
Ronox
Utilbébé

MATERIAL SUPPORT
Btherm
Katoa
Navarra
Ronox

SUPPORT
Municipality of Braga (Hugo Gomes - electrical installation)
Professor Graça Brito (FCT-UNL)
Professor Paulo Sá Caetano (FCT-UNL)
Hugo Dabin