BAIRRO AGRA DO AMIAL

A POÉTICA DA VIDA

FCPA II - 2025 | 2026

Alejandro Erraez | Ellen Spitz | Gustavo Guedes | Kevin Alecio | Juana Moncada

The social housing neighborhood of Agra do Amial, located in the parish of Paranhos, in the city of Porto, is surrounded by movement.

Cranes move; buildings rise; buses, cars, bicycles, and people circulate. Universities, highways, metro lines, and housing developments densify the surroundings.

We do not live there, and both our journey through and experience of inhabiting this space occurred in a forced, investigative manner and, at first glance, from a distance. Yet there is something familiar in every human being and in their routines of dwelling. It is within this ambiguous feeling — between estrangement and familiarity — that what is most complex about this space is revealed: the ordinary.

In dwelling, architecture is surpassed; its elements are appropriated and adapted to human desires. In this way, personalities are identified through shoes, paths become recognizable, habits become known. Despite all its particularities, there is a strong sense of unity upon entering the neighborhood. Something announces itself even before the different openings, window frames, and appropriations are noticed: color.

Pink emerges as a unifying force, capable of harmonizing all the individuality brought by the residents. It is a presence — the central character of our narrative. The one that speaks to everything and everyone, guiding us toward a closer relationship with the space.

As the creator of this atmosphere of belonging — a two-way exchange in which architecture also shapes the individual and their choices — pink prevails: in clothes, towels, and bedsheets.
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