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Porto: Faculty of Food

Part 2 Project 2008
Richard Bower
University of Plymouth | UK

A response to the vibrant cultural and visceral contextual tones of Porto.

A proposal in anticipation of the possibilities of its people and place, anticipating a rediscovery of local traditions, festivals; pride and belief.

An exploration of thresholds and boundaries between pubic and private, streets and squares.

A celebration of life, work and food at every scale; in the productivity of a whole region, the strength of a cohesive community, and the ambition of an individual.

Instead of an imposing foreground, a proposal for a supporting background; intimately reconnecting existing city fabric and form with new space and possibilities.


Richard Bower


Richard’s proposition for a Faculty of Food in the historic centre of Porto explores a symbiotic, visceral relationship between landscape and settlement, expressed through daily rituals of the selling, preparation and eating of food. Building from discussions with local inhabitants and a study of the surrounding landscape, his work was supported through parallel studies on the nature of place and materiality. Taking a critical stance toward the inherited conventions of Porto, his proposition reinterprets the nature of public place, interior and the boundary in-between through a language responsive to underlying cultural, social, tectonic and topographic qualities of place.

Robert Brown

2008
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