La gente de las ‘Ilhas’ y los nuevos territorios del urbano: Programa Especial de Realojamiento (PER), Área Metropolitana de Oporto

Abstract

This article is developed from the presentation of the Programa Especial de Realojamento (Special Relodging Programme), known as PER, a program of social dwelling launched in Portugal in 1993, which main goal was to eradicate the precarious dwellings of the metropolitan whereabouts of Lisbon and Oporto, the most affected areas of the country. We have started from a general context in order to get to the PER in the metropolitan area of Oporto - the unhealthy dwelling problem was mostly associated to the ‘ilhas’ (Fig.1) - where we have investigated only the Municipal Promoted houses versus Officially Protected ones for rent. Our main focused case is the open space enhancing the in-between space, concerning the problematic of territory and sociability in the contemporaneous city. In this context, we present the Monte Espinho quarter because it is a particular study case of the investigation: we elaborated the project, in 1994/95 and reformulated it in 2004. The first phase of the enterprise took place in 2005 and the approaching to the reality is going on, putting face to face the "thought space - the space that was idealized" versus the "practiced space - the space being lived ".