Living in Lisbon" workshop: Interdisciplinarity, sharing and experimentation on the agenda!

From October 15 to 21, 2023, a team of students fromENSA Normandie, accompanied by professor Caroline Maniaque, participated in the Blended Intensive Program (BIP) workshop in Lisbon. This group was joined by students from Frankfurt, mainly art historians or specialists in curatorial studies, as well as Portuguese students studying architecture.

The week was very intense, with lectures by geographers, sociologists and historians on the first day to situate the problem to be addressed, followed by actual visits to social housing around Lisbon. The program then developed around the exhibition Living in Lisbon, presented at the Garagem, an architectural exhibition space in the Belem Cultural Centre. The inauguration took place on Tuesday evening and was attended by at least 600 people, the entire architectural community of Lisbon and the surrounding region. Marta Sequeira, the exhibition's curator, gave an enlightening tour of the show.

On Thursday afternoon, participants attended a lecture given by Dutch architect Kamiel Klaasse (a partner of Amsterdam-based NL. Architects), presenting a transformation of a large 1960s Biljlmermeer housing development of 500 units in the Amsterdam suburbs.

A number of teaching aids were tested, including an interesting "speed dating" experiment, with Portuguese architects and landscape architects coming together very quickly to give their views on how the work was evolving.

The group of École students regrets just one thing: that the week went by far too quickly!