Portuguese Architecture and Identity. The SAAL Process: an (un)repeatable dream. Case study of Portela-Outurela, Oeiras Ricardo Santos Professional status: PhD holder and member of the Centre for Studies in Architecture and Urbanism (CEAU), Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto (FAUP)
[email protected] Introduction teams in contemporary society. The Portela-Outurela operation of the SAAL [Local Ambulatory Support Service] 1. SAAL/Lisbon programme and the 18 de Maio Residents’ Association, which is shortly to commemorate Under the scope of the SAAL/Lisbon project, its 40th anniversary, achieved many of the it is important to distinguish between those objectives set out at the beginning of the operations that were begun within and close process and now stands today as an example to the city limits and those that were launched of the committed undertaking made between on the periphery, to the north and west of the the technical team and the residents, between city. When we look at the various architectural architecture and participation. solutions and typologies, as well as the scale and density of the interventions, we can The project coordinated by the architect quickly see that, despite the differences, it is António Carvalho was managed on site by possible to identify, within Lisbon itself, the the younger members of the team, who had repetition of a solution based on collective to adapt their models and methodologies to housing blocks, with buildings four or five both the context and the difficulties created storeys high, and with common vertical by intervening in the periphery of Lisbon accesses, towering over terraced buildings, and in slum areas.