Symposium on Housing, UNESCO City of Guimaraes/Portugal, May 2025

Today, we face a widespread housing crisis on a worldwide scale, and it is about to inflict societal damage and disruption, also in Western societies. With this symposium, we want to address the problems surrounding housing and envision solutions to those. In addition to issues of architecture and urban planning, the underlying economic and political realities which dictate housing need a radical rethink. The present is not working at all. What our symposium tried to achieve are new ways of housing, elaborated by the different stakeholder groups relevant for housing and urban planning, such as private business, investors, architects, and government officials. 

Also in architectural terms, housing is not just about houses. The city is to be regarded as a whole, delivering quality of life for its inhabitants, provided by its architectural ensembles, its houses and other buildings, its places, streets, and parks. As housing does, a city provides identity. How to make housing within a city fabric? Speaking of ‘Housing’ is speaking of what identifies us, what belongs to us, what characterizes us, and what manifests our community, society, and culture. Housing has become the most sensitive subject in architecture today and demands in-depth reflection on an ongoing basis. On the one hand, we need affordable housing to avoid social disruption, without destroying the cultural heritage. On the other hand, ‘affordable’ is not identical with just building standardized housing blocks where people get isolated and alienated, as has been the case in many major cities around the world.

Reflecting on housing includes concepts about the city as a consistent whole and as a place of identity and belonging. Urban planning has to consider the quality of life and not just functionalities. Therefore, housing is not just about houses but has to include considerations and plans to revitalize the public space and its various forms of appropriation. This space is intended to be intercultural, plural and to safeguard rights and access for all.

In collaboration with the City Council of Guimaraes and the Zegnea Group, Ideal Spaces held a three day-symposium on a very important issue: Housing. To illuminate it from different perspectives, also in the direction of solutions to the issue of housing, Portuguese as well as international speakers presented, government officials such as the Portuguese secretary of state for housing, as well as architects, investors, urban planners, and members from different universities, all of them bringing in their expertise.   

Assisted by the moderators Dr. Ulrich Gehmann from Ideal Spaces and Mariana Rodrigues from Zegnea Group, the event was performed during three days, from May 29 to May 31, divided into three major parts:

• Day 1 Re-cognize the City, addressing important relations between housing and the city as a natural human place, relationships often forgotten today
• Day 2 Re-interpret Housing, in the light of actual problems, needs, and new concepts of housing 
• Day 3 Re-imagine Space, in the direction of new ways of housing and new urban contexts  

Each day was divided into two panels, with different speakers addressing different but related topics:

Day 1: City

The first day of the symposium was about the city as a humane locality, a place for community and identity, together with the need for places and urban ensembles. And how the topic of housing, and the recent city relate to that. 

Introduction. Arq. Ana Cotter, Coordinator of UNESCO Heritage and Head of Urbanism at the City Council of Guimaraes.

Welcome Speech. President of the City Council of Guimaraes, Mayor Dr. Domingos Braganca https://youtu.be/4bhvj3mA9UQ

Welcome Speech. Secretary of State for Housing, Arq. Patricia Machado dos Santos https://youtu.be/Kx8O_4_A900

Panel I: City: A Human Nature

The Imperative of Place: The Urban Ensemble, Aesthetic Rationality, and Civic Manners. Prof. Jason Montgomery, Catholic University of America, Washington D.C./USA

 Local aspects of the City of Guimaraes and the Region: Mobility, Private and Public Spaces. Eng. André Fontes, Cerejeira Fontes Architects, Braga/Portugal https://youtu.be/_taJSCN01Uw

The Condition of Urbanism Today, Loss of Identity, and a New Housing Project. Arch. Paulo Castelo Branco, Mo(o)ve Arquitetos, Porto/Portugal

Discussion: Place, Community, and the Recent City