Transcribe - Summer Lab

Scope of Transcribe Summer Lab

The Transcribe Summer Lab: Socio-Spatial Practices in Braga’s Social Housing Neighbourhoods will be an experimental and theoretical-practical laboratory open to 30 participants, that will take place between the 4th-9th September 2017. The Transcribe Summer Lab intends to gather a number of multidisciplinary agents and professionals in order to discuss the context and the existing problems in three social housing neighbourhoods in Braga, Portugal.

This Summer Lab emerges within the scope of the project (Re)Escrever o nosso bairro [(Re) Writing our Neighbourhood]. This is a three-year project coordinated by the Braga City Council that includes a set of social inclusion initiatives and which, in articulation with Braga's Strategic Plan for Urban Development, focuses on the rehabilitation of three social housing neighbourhoods in Braga: Bairro de Santa Tecla, Bairro Social das Enguardas and Complexo Habitacional do Picoto. This project acts through the design of activities that foster a sense of identity and belonging between Braga´s social housing and the community. Moreover, these activities are defined as integrative proposals for an active inclusion of the community in Braga, towards the creation of innovative pedagogical, social and artistic programmes, which intend to become catalysts for new opportunities.

More information available at: http://reescreveronossobairro.cm-braga.pt

Objectives

Build a platform for reflection upon the realities and issues associated with social housing neighbourhoods in Braga and the communities that reside there;
Extend the discussion to a broader multidisciplinary and participatory scope, questioning current management models and public policies;
Carry out an in-situ collection of documents in different types of media to serve as a basis for the development of new interpretations and approaches regarding these places;
Create architectural, urban, participatory and artistic strategies that respond to existing social and spatial issues, in order to ensure a more integrated and promising future for these places and their inhabitants;
Offer participants direct and immersive contact with these spaces and communities, allowing them to enhance their awareness and skills for the design of social projects and strategies;
Provide an opportunity to explore and apply diverse methodologies and creative tools for intervention in different social contexts;
Offer participants an experience and a theoretical-practical contact, coordinated by monitors and agents experienced in the themes at hand;

Methodology

Transcribe Summer Lab seeks to develop a theoretical-practical methodology to provide experiments in immersive in-situ work for the period of one week (4th to 9th September, 2017) in three social housing neighbourhoods of Braga (Enguardas, Santa Tecla and Picoto). This in-situ work will be structured according to two main approaches:

Practical Sessions

It is expected that 30 selected candidates will be distributed into three work groups (one per social housing) supervised by an international and interdisciplinary group of mentors. Each work group will carry out a project that provides a critical reflection on the issues found in Braga’s social housing neighbourhoods and also that proposes a visible outcome and a catalyst strategy for these places. With this in mind, the work groups are expected to experiment a methodology that involves:

Observation in-situ in order to analyse opportunities and constraints present in the built space of these social housing; understand the relation between the morphology of the social housing and their urban surroundings; map informal appropriations, dynamics and social behaviours in the neighbourhoods’ public spaces.
Dialogue with the existing community in order to understand and to record the sense of belonging between the neighbourhoods’ communities and the built space, considering the existing ethnic, cultural, age and gender diversity.
Socially-engaged imagination in order to create socio-spatial practices capable of integrating innovative scenarios and strategies for the future of these neighbourhoods.

Participants will be encouraged to use tools that they master (such as: drawing; video; photo; photomontage; urban graffiti; performance; construction) and to take advantage of the existing physical and human resources. Participants will be responsible for bringing their drawing materials, personal computer, cameras and other tools they are familiar with.

Open/Theoretical Sessions

A number of complementary open and theoretical sessions will take place during the week in Museu D.Diogo de Sousa in Braga, such as: lectures by invited researchers on specific themes related to the Summer Lab scope; forums, dinners with the community, movie screenings and social events.

All the works produced in this Summer Lab will be presented not only to the community of the social housing neighbourhoods, but also to the municipal and private entities involved in the process. Subsequently, these works will be integrated into the a public exhibition and within a publication with the results of the first year of the project (Re)Escrever o Nosso Bairro.