Casas e Lugares do Sentir -Craft Lab: digital manufacturing technologies to enhance craft production
“Casas e Lugares do Sentir”, created by the Fundão Municipality in a protocol with UNESCO, aim to stimulate, conserve, and preserve the territory and its material and immaterial heritage, in a territory rich in traditions and knowledge, which is urgent to preserve, promote and make known to others. Thus, it aims the safeguarding of traditions and transmission of knowledge, locally based and traditional, bringing generations closer together and empowering more people to live in rural territories.
Local
Portugal
Municipality of Fundão
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Municipality of Fundão Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Ricardo Last name of representative: Gonçalves Gender: Male Nationality: Portugal Function: Head of Innovation, Investment and Planning Division Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Praça do Município Town: Fundão Postal code: 6230-338 Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 966 772 194 E-mail:ricardogoncalves@cm-fundao.pt Website:https://www.cm-fundao.pt/
The network “Casas e Lugares do Sentir” (Places and Homes of Feeling), was created in 2017 by the Municipality of Fundão in a protocol with UNESCO, aim to stimulate, conserve, and preserve the territory and its material and immaterial heritage, in a territory rich in traditions and knowledge, which is urgent to preserve, promote and make known to others. Thus, it aims the safeguarding of traditions and transmission of knowledge, locally based and traditional, bringing generations closer together and empowering more people to live in rural territories. Today, the network “Casas e Lugares do Sentir” consists of 13 different thematic houses, located throughout different parishes of the Municipality of Fundão, that honour local knowledge and traditions, forming a cultural, tourist, social and educational itinerary in the council.
The different thematic houses are designed to ensure that the common knowledge and some of the customs and habits distinctive of each parish and that forge our identity are not lost, namely: the House of Folklore, House of Memories (in honour of António Guterres, whom has its origins in the parish of Donas), House of Poetry, House of Pilgrimage, House of Clay, House of Weavers, House of Drum, House of Cheese, House of Honey, House of Cherry, House of Pastoralism, House of Boatmen and House of Crafts.
Thus, “Casas e Lugares do Sentir” consists of an agglutinating pole, an immaterial structure that accommodates some already existing physical spaces, which were transformed to receive a new meaning, and other new ones, where all the knowledge and know-how have a demarcated and singular space and, at the same time, dynamic and interactive and at the service of the entire community. The project also aims to reinforce Fundão's denomination as Child Friendly City, through its connection with the School-Village project, an animation, empowerment and training programme entirely dedicated to the transmission of locally based and traditional knowledge.
Cultural heritage
Digital fabrication
Rural territories
Arts and crafts
Community capacity building
The municipality of Fundão is made up of 23 parishes inhabited by 26 509 people, many of whom are over 65 years old. It is in this demographic context and within the scope of the municipality’s identity image renewal that one of the strategic vertices of the museological programme of Fundão is designed, having “Casas e Lugares do Sentir” has one of its most challenging manifestations.
We start from the territory as a great Common House, the House is the territory, the space lived and built in a living ecology that fulfils the etymological origins of Ecology oîkos, the "house" thus the “language”, the knowledge. These Houses are intimately linked to an inclusive cultural map of the territory of Fundão. We believe that heritage, taken and understood as a global fact of contemporary societies, is the trigger and the agent capable of propitiating and leading to sustainable development as a certainty of the future.
The Houses value and promote the territory's identity, memory, tradition, and history, projecting them towards the universalistic dimension of Europe and the world and, at the same time, achieve the territory's cultural cohesion and foster the fruition of arts and culture and the creativity of regional, national, and international agents and creators.
The main coordinates of this Houses, in line with UNESCO values, are: Identity; Sociability; Civic participation; Solidarity; Multicultural inclusion; Informative; Acquisition and transmission of knowledge in a critical manner and in accordance with multiple readings.
Furthermore, with the constitution and activation of these places of memory and heritage, we also wanted to reinforce the affirmation of a regeneration message, by installing these Houses in former primary schools. These buildings carry a very significant symbolic and mnemonic weight in the history of the communities. We intend with these nuclei to assume them as creative centres of an image of the present and the future of the villages.
We intend to take these houses as creative centres of an image of the present and the future of the villages. Hence our bet on the awakening and transformation of emotions, because above all we want these houses to be containers of emotions and not just nostalgia.
We want the Houses to be places of knowledge, combining plural didactics or promoting art workshops, social education or handicraf, building an educational map for our community. We believe that culture is education and education is culture. This, the Houses are poles which strengthen community bonds.
These Houses are spaces for rebuilding and remembering where the participation and concerns of communities and the discovery of their tangible and intangible heritage come together. Communities become aware of their role in protecting and preserving their heritage.
Within the scope of the “Casas e Lugares do Sentir” , the Educational Visits Network of the Municipality of Fundão was created by the local authority, with the support of the Parish Councils, among other partners. One of its main goals is the promotion of dozens of initiatives, allowing seniors, young and children to get to know the best of our territory, as well as its potentialities, in a relaxed and didactic environment. Know-how is one of our great hallmarks. Reconciling recreational and educational activities is another of the project's great aims, bringing the community closer to its territory, through a thematic circuit that everyone is challenged to participate in.
Furthermore, within the scope of the “Casas e Lugares do Sentir”, it was also established the Craft Lab, in partnership with the FabLab Aldeias do Xisto and CEARTE - Professional Training Centre for Handicrafts and Heritage, aiming to promote the use of digital fabrication technologies and design processes as tools to support and value the handicraft production, as well as bringing innovation to old crafts and adapting the objects to today’s world.
Since 2017, hundreds of people have visited the “Casas e Lugares do Sentir” network, including more than 35,000 children and young people. The Municipality of Fundão, together with its partners, tries to bring the school closer to its territory, that is, to bring the school into the communities and the communities into life of our students. In this context, the work that has been developed provokes a certain "passion", through "feeling, smells" and "tastes".
Over the years, the “Casas e Lugares do Sentir” have gained space and recognition for their significance in safeguarding values, intangible heritage, and the relationship they have with the life of the communities in which they are located. We have already carried out dozens of initiatives, all of them from and to the community, where everyone is invited to participate. In fact, Fundão is a land of inclusion, without prejudice and where anyone, regardless of their age, nationality, religion, or the language they speak, can develop their life project, being already the home for people of 63 different nationalities. With the creation of the UNESCO Centre in the House of Memories, we also tried to promote dialogue, favour cultural diversity, and contribute to human development, since Fundão is the affective home of the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, where he spent much of his childhood.
Furthermore, by bringing the FabLab Aldeias do Xisto, a low-cost creation and experimentation space where there are no limits to creativity, to the “Casas e Lugares do Sentir” project, we reinforce the accessibility and affordability of the initiative, by providing access to advanced technology and educational resources in a supportive and inclusive environment. The FabLab Aldeias do Xisto is part of the FabLab Worldwide Network, which is committed to promoting access to digital fabrication technologies, fostering innovation and creativity, and supporting local communities.
Preserve the territory and its material and immaterial cultural heritage through “Casas e Lugares do Sentir” has an extraordinarily positive impact on the lives of citizens by promoting education, cultural identity, economic development, social cohesion, environmental conservation, and cultural diversity in the territory.
Besides educating our citizens, especially the younger generation, about their history and cultural roots, promoting a better understanding of the past and its influence on the present, as well as fostering a sense of identity and belonging, the Casas and Lugares do Sentir project also allows the generation of a new set of products and services, prototypes, and experiences that, besides enriching the ability to do, allow new commercial, strategic and affective connections to be established with other social, cultural and economic segments, enhancing the value of our territory. Moreover, it also encourages job creation in rural areas through social and economic valorisation of traditional trades and know-how, leveraged by the creation of value throughout the craft production chain, exploitation of new concepts, products, and services.
Thus, we affirm the territory as a destination to live, invest and create, through an innovative ecosystem of permanent learning and appreciation of knowledge and its sharing and establishing the conditions for the flourishing of a community and intergenerational environment of mutual help and support.
Firstly, the project has born from a protocol between the Municipality of Fundão and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which gave rise to the current UNESCO Club – Casas and Lugares do Sentir Network, consolidating the effort of the Municipality of Fundão to respect the UNESCO’s values and principles. Therefore, the initiative was designed in straight collaboration with UNESCO, but always evolving relevant private and public entities, at local, regional, and national levels, fundamental for a successful implementation of the initiative, namely the Parish Councils; the Fundão School Group; Gardunha and Xisto School Group; FabLab Aldeias do Xisto; ADXTUR- Schist Villages Tourism Development Agency; FabLabs Portugal - Portuguese Association of Digital Fabrication Laboratories; and CEARTE - Professional Training Centre for Handicrafts and Heritage.
Regarding the educational project of the Casas e lugares do Sentir, we would like to point out that this project has a strong pedagogical and didactic component. There is a huge motivation on the part of teachers and educators for their students to learn certain content outside the school context. It is a route that gives them the opportunity to get to know the territory, motivating them to learn history, mathematics, environmental studies, geography, citizenship, and other areas outside the school environment.
The experiences that the Houses provide are part of their success, let's look at some examples: House of Drum, Drum School (playing and construction); House of Clay, Clay School; House of Crafts, Recycled garnetted workshop; House of Chesse, Cheese workshops; House of Pastoralism, construction of chavelhas; House of Cherry, basketry workshop; House of Pilgrimage, Santa Luzia Flower School (tissue paper flowers); House of Weavers, loom and recycled materials workshop; House of Memories António Guterres, Citizenship School; House of Honey, Pinhal Interior Knowledge and Flavours School connected to honey and bees.
Furthermore, the project Casas e Lugares do Sentir aims to continue and deepen a model of research, creative immersion, representation, and production, inviting artists, researchers, and thinkers to develop projects and objects that carry a meaning and a message, and that stimulate the emergence of new ways of doing and being. The focus remains on the laboratory format, crossing different skills, techniques (handmade and digital) and audiences (artisans and students), involving small industrial and family units, through a project methodology that is already well incorporated into the modus operandi of our territory: development of welcoming and creative immersion programmes, technical and artistic research, design, prototyping and production of objects, and project development, boosting knowledge and competence centres in the territory.
The Casas e Lugares do Sentir is a pioneer project in Portugal, not only because it is the only integrated cultural response in Portugal focused on stimulate, conserve, and preserve the territory and its material and immaterial heritage, through the local community involvement, but also because it aggregates a huge set of relevant actors in the territory, namely the FabLab Aldeias do Xisto, which brings to the project a innovation component, through the use of digital technologies, the application of new processes to old crafts, for example, within the scope of the House of Clay, it was developed a 3D printer in which the material used is clay, instead of plastic filaments. In addition, it also brings the possibility to create more contemporary objects through the application of new and more sustainable process and materials.
Furthermore, the project brings together, around nature and culture, a set of actors and knowledge frontiers in areas as distinct as history, ethnography, gastronomy, craft, design, traditional arts and crafts, handicrafts and digital fabrication, ecology and audiovisual, to, from the local context, idealize, produce and market goods and services capable of attracting new demand.
We strongly believe that the Casas e Lugares do Sentir and its associated initiatives (Educational Visits Network and Craft Lab) could be replicated in other territories, however it is important to approach cultural heritage projects with sensitivity and respect for the local cultural norms and values. Thus, it would be important to conduct prior research and analysis of the target context, in order to fit the initiative to the new context, taking into account cultural differences, resources, and any other relevant factors. Additionally, it is important to engage with local communities, stakeholders, and relevant organizations to understand their perspectives and expectations for the project, as well as foster local ownership and participation in the project by involving them in decision-making processes, project implementation, and maintenance.
The educational project offers all children, young and seniors, not only from the region, but also from the country, a visit full of magic and enchantment. Reconciling leisure and learning is another of its great purposes, bringing the territory closer to its users, through a thematic circuit, which they can enjoy in a cultural environment. This route allows and provides a strong mobilisation of the educational community to the Houses which are part of the municipal route - Casas e Lugares do Sentir, where each one can live a unique and timeless experience.
In addition to the experiences, both the Educational Network and the Network of Houses take on the values of the National Education Commission, published in 2000: "Citizenship is not only taught through knowledge that is transmitted and reproduced. It is not just a status, but a process of personal and collective construction based on lifelong education. It is like a historical construction of the individual himself and of society."
The aim of the Municipality of Fundão, located in a low density territory, throught the implementation of several innovative initiatives including the project Casas e Lugares do Sentir, is to generate territorial attractiveness, stimulating a sustainable, integrated, and participatory social and economic development. Fulfilling this mission in the context dictated by the difficulties that the territory faces, namely the population loss and the economic activity weakening over the last decades, requires exploring paths less travelled. As such, the Municipality of Fundão has been taking on the role of an experimenting agent, calling on new actors, thoughts, and skills to interact with their communities and, in this way, generate arguments to create and promote goods and services that are significant for their identity, and enhance them with demanding audiences and markets in terms of nature tourism and social responsibility.
Furthermore, the decline in traditional skills and knowledge, with the aging population of artisans, makes the transfer of traditional skills and knowledge from one generation to the next difficult, thus with the implementation of this project we aim to bring the old and new generations closer together, by sharing traditions and knowledge, which is urgent to preserve, promote and make known to others.
The network Casas e Lugares do Sentir was launched in 2027 and today consists of 13 different thematic houses, located throughout different parishes of the Municipality of Fundão, that honour local knowledge and traditions, forming a cultural, tourist, social and educational itinerary in the council. Since 2017, hundreds of people have visited the “Casas e Lugares do Sentir” network, including more than 35,000 children and young people. Several events and initiaves were dynamized in the different House, namely the Fornada, an event that took place last year in June and which involved duzens of citizens interested in knowing more about the pottery art.
Through this project we will continue to promote a great mobility in the municipality, as a kind of tertulia of knowledge, flavours and knowledge of our history, materialised in physical spaces, but with their own life and dynamics of its own, always with a strong always with a strong connection to the local communities.
