Lagarteiro Neighbourhood - Social housing building renovation
Lagarteiro is a social neighbourhood built in the outskirts of Porto in the 70s. Recently, the City Hall launched an huge intervention for renovating buildings and public space.
Lagarteiro was one of the last social housing neighbourhoods built before the Portuguese Revolution of 1974. Lagarteiro design, like other projects of that time, followed a matrix used by Porto City Hal, which corresponded to housing buildings with four floors, surrounding a primary school and a sport enclosure. This model, resulted of the so called Improvement Plan of the City (Plano de Melhoramentos da Cidade), launched in late 50s. The main goal of the plan was rehousing people which lived in precarious conditions in the 'islands' of Porto city center. This policy precedes the mythic SAAL program, which would revealed to the world Álvaro Siza Vieira's work, namely Bouça and São Vitor interventions, published in the pages of L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui magazine, in 1976.
Almost 50 years passed after the Lagarteiro construction (1973/1976), today this place overpassed its peripheral stigma, being much more connected with the core of the city. The architectural intervention contributed to improve the civic condition of Lagarteiro inhabitants. The project foresaw facades renovation, stairwell closure; roof changed, replacement of all windows and doors; water, electricity and gas supply including new communication nets, and public space. After the intervention Lagarteiro neighbourhood became a more sustainable place, stimulating urban life quality.
