Luminous Pockets in the Empty Capital
Refugees usually bring with them a host of skills, cultures, traditions and ethnic food. To properly utilize those skills we would like to offer our solution: pre-fab cultural incubators. Portugal’s Municipal already has the resources to implement this project as it has collected a sum of 2 million euros and has a vast network of collaborative partners and sponsors.
Tradionally, architecture/construction has been a passive process, where the problems are solved after they have existed for a while. We argue for a kind of Temporary Urbanism, producing cultural incubators that are - 1. Free of Program 2. Bottom-up 3. Flexible and Adaptable. This will help solve problems like refugee crisis in a more active mechanism, acting as interface between the Lisbon locals and refugees.
These luminous pockets around the city could be used for programs of cultural production based around food, music, visual arts etc.
-- Activities such as ethnic food workshops, live demostrations and flea markets could provide the infrastructure to make the process of resettling perform better.
-- Language and vocational training for the refugees,
-- Above all, it would be a place of interaction for the refugees, immigrants and locals.
