Aftercity 3: Reversals
Oporto, Portugal

In 2022 we returned to Portugal but this time to examine changes to its second city. Oporto has felt the impact of wider change across Europe over the last six years with many young people returning to the city from abroad and changing the fortunes of its physical environment. Alongside this, there continued a movement of young people from rural areas to the city to find work and to study. Overall, however, the population of Oporto and indeed of Portugal continues to decline. We will meet with architects and academics with whom we will discuss these phenomena. In the wake of the global pandemic and our continuing efforts to understand its impact on our cities we will look closely at small adjustments and larger infrastructural change. Students proposed small temporary structures and later, larger more permanent buildings that responded to their individual and collective findings.
    Studio 2 examines the changes associated with our post-pandemic world. The pull of the city to detriment of rural life has been a long-established reality here but now that many have accepted a more fluid relationship with work, study, and home life, has the seemingly inexorable pull of the city been slowed or even reversed? What can our cities learn from the past three years and how must our buildings respond to the change?

Teaching partner: Colin O’Sullivan. 
Studio 2, LMU, 2022–23