Inhabiting. City as a living system.

This project, is an experience on how architecture can be the key to develop profound repairing strategies for wounded territories that urge serious reflections. Going deeply in the exploration of the site’s identity and facing cities as true living systems, it is proposed a new way to inhabit, rooted in the landscape and in the history of its own people.

Valley of João Gomes Stream, Funchal, Madeira Island. In this territory, we first read a primordial topographic condition as a result of the volcanic genesis of the island and its bedrock carved over thousands of years by water. This defines the identity of the site and submits its entire development. Here arose specific ways of life and a constructive wisdom that allowed the exploration of the territory. The greatest’s examples are the poios, agriculture terraces system which transformed the natural slopes, and the levadas, water channels that irrigate the whole island. However, countless abuses and accidents were also triggered. From an early age its deforestation and more recently the demands of the car and the concrete waterproofing. As a result, serious phenomena such as the alluvium and fires took place. Embracing this vulnerabilities, a systemic strategy is proposed, exploring different levels of action as reforestation, adequate and sustainable agriculture, expansion of the city with due planning and maintenance of the channels of the streams, embracing the city as a living organism. Its greatest exploration is reflected in the field of housing, reorganizing this valley from a set of built-up cells that merge into the landscape. Interconnected through assisted mobility routes, they promote public space, so scarce and necessary. Deep-rooted in the land this system leans on its constructive premise and vernacular wisdom. Developing the city, in the sense of sheltering and protecting each inhabitant, is to create dignified places to work, rest, dream, silence... Space must respond to this need for healing, not only materially but spiritually... As a volcanic island, where the fragility of its nature becomes constant, the experience of the islanders has been reflected through times as a request for divine protection. The site reveals a ridge line path that goes along the basin of the stream. Unexpectedly it unites four points of an important religious character. Therefore a connection to this path is proposed, starting in a new chapel, a refuge in the rock, suggesting a pilgrimage route.