The Public Conglomerate Part 2 Project 2025 Cameron Healey Mackintosh School of Architecture | UK The thesis begins by observing that civic form in Porto is increasingly shaped by commercial pressures and top-down planning. What was once organic and collectivised is now orchestrated by bureaucratic, homogenised systems prioritising efficiency over engagement, and centralisation over local autonomy.In response, the thesis proposes rethinking civic form to restore civic agency by embedding it within everyday life. It identifies local parish social clubs as sites of untapped civic potential, having evolved through necessity and proximity into resilient grassroots institutions via activism, outreach, and cultural stewardship. By legitimising and amplifying the civic authority these clubs have cultivated, the project transforms their latent capacity into a visible, spatial reality.Bringing together these local actors, the project uses the Smithsons’ ‘Conglomerate Order’ as a framework to create an assemblage of autonomous architectural characters forming an organic yet intuitive whole. The Public Conglomerate is a civic centre for Fontainhas that transforms a contested public space and re- imagines a derelict abattoir and adjacent site to embody this new attitude to civic life.It is an open platform for public existence across various scales and conditions, symbolising civic authorship where architecture becomes a tool for collective autonomy. Tutor(s)