Renovating historic workers’ villas keeping in place their resident population
Dealing with a housing crisis, the Lisbon City Council does not give up fulfilling a right of the Portuguese constitution: the right to housing. Sometimes located in neighbourhoods highly demanded by the market, several workers’ villas form a bubble where time and the effects of urbanisation stopped being in a fast decay process. To renovate these, the housing and construction departments unite efforts guaranteeing that the residents (a vulnerable population) stay in place during the works.
Local
Portugal
{Empty}
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
Yes
NextGenerationEU, Housing Component from the Portuguese Recovery and Resilience Plan (Vila Romão da Silva has application submitted to this funding, yet to be approved at national level). Vila Bela Vista, concluded in 2019, had no EU funding.
No
Yes
2019-12-31
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Municipality of Lisbon Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Marta Last name of representative: Mayor Gender: Female Nationality: Portugal Function: Director of Housing Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Praça do Município, Paço dos Concelho Town: Lisboa Postal code: 1100-365 Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 914 858 660 E-mail:dmhdl@cm-lisboa.pt Website:https://www.lisboa.pt/
Dealing with a housing crisis, the Lisbon City Council does not give up fulfilling a right of the Portuguese constitution: the right to housing. The council holds several workers’ villas which date back to when industries occupied the city, during the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Now mainly located in neighbourhoods highly demanded by the market, the villas express specific economic, social and physical characteristics and inclusive inhabitation. They form a micro-city and a way of living and atmosphere opposed to the rush and bustle of the contemporary city. However, the houses have small partitions that no longer fit the minimum conditions of a dignified inhabiting, demonstrating, in most cases, severe signs of decay. For the council, the people living in these villages are social patrimony. They belong to the place where they have seen several generations born, grow and sometimes move to other places. To renovate the houses, the council designs a complex plan, combining efforts from several of its departments, which sometimes imply the purchase of fractions from private individuals to combat speculation and ensure renovation by the council, preserving the most vulnerable population (in most cases of these villas, older population at risk of exclusion and poverty), and allowing the residents to stay in place during the renovation works. The council also gives the possibility of relocation, but most residents opt to stay where they have been living since ever.
The council has been adopting this methodology whenever possible (by starting to renovate empty houses), ensuring the well-being of the residents with frequent visits by the social workers from the housing department. One of the concluded and successful projects is Vila Bela Vista. And the same methodology is being applied to another project currently in construction: Vila Romão da Silva.
Social patrimony
Vulnerable population
Low rent housing
Community service
Anti-speculation
The project is eminently social. It deals with the consolidated urban fabric and decaying buildings renovated by public funds, which constrict several solutions when it comes to sustainability. The main idea is to renovate and improve the preexistent buildings and infrastructures, according to current urban standards, avoiding major demolitions and making the most of existing elements, promoting reuse and a circular economy, and providing the houses with conditions of seismic resistance and thermal comfort.
In Vila Bela Vista (concluded and successfully inhabited), the design explores the resource to natural conditions as much as possible. Due to the preexisting typology, the design emphasises natural ventilation through gardened terraces at the side or back and openings in most of the façades (with new windows added even in some cases), resulting in mild and temperate comfort and good energy efficiency as well. The new layout of the interior allows for the concentration of water and sewage networks resulting in greater efficiency and less wastage. These seem minimal interventions, but they are also reflected in the costs to be borne by residents, namely energy for heating and water, responding to both concerns (social and environmental).
In the case of Vila Romão da Silva, it was possible to implement a macro strategy with a collection system and a water reservoir that will be used to irrigate the collective garden. The garden offers not only visual comfort but also helps to temperate the climate.
The main objective is to take care of vulnerable populations, mainly elders and/or at risk of exclusion and poverty, that inhabit former workers’ villas in the middle of Lisbon, showing signs of advanced decay. The project provides these populations with a home with improved and dignified living conditions without erasing their memories by allowing them to stay in the villa during the renovation works. The council offers the option to the residents of moving to other neighbourhoods, but most of them prefer to stay and accompany the process (for some residents leaving would be a sort of pre-announced death). This process is very complex as sometimes residents must move twice. Still, it is monitored by the social service of the housing department with weekly visits. The first phase involves a survey of the building and another survey of the families’ types, including their anxieties and expectations, which the renovation project seeks to meet. It is also an objective to keep the particular atmosphere (remembering an ancestral and peaceful rural village) of these villas, mainly the relation between private and public space. In Vila Bela Vista, it was important the keep the terraced gardens and patios, and to ensure the relationship between houses and the street in which the latter is an extension of the former, providing moments of sharing between neighbours. Vila Romão da Silva has a rare feature within the typology of the workers’ villa. It holds a theatre run by a small theatrical company and a sports and recreation association where the community meet. The building (that housed both spaces) was at severe risk of collapsing and represented a cut between the street and the villa. The design proposes a new building facing the street, repairing the continuity (with a passage to the courtyard at its back) with a layout that permits opening one side of the stage into the villa’s courtyard and even holding spectacles in the open air.
The project integrates both low rent and affordable housing programs of the Lisbon city council. It ensures the renovation of former workers’ villas that are council’s property (100% public) and when there are private owners, it promotes collaborative dialogue to guarantee total inclusion by inclusively renovating the exterior façades of the private houses, when possible.
By controlling the operation, the council guarantees that residents stay in the neighbourhood where they have always lived. This methodology is only possible when there are empty houses in the villa, allowing the temporary moving of families to these as renovation works develop. After completing the total renovation, the houses once empty are attributed to families at risk of poverty and exclusion under a program of affordable rent. Some of the workers’ villas are located in neighbourhoods under enormous pressure from the financial and rent markets (for instance, Vila Romão da Silva is located near Amoreiras, a premium residential area). This program (the workers’ villa renovation program) helps to fight speculation, combat segregation, and improve the integration of different social classes by creating inclusive spaces.
In the case of Vila Romão da Silva, an important design alteration from the original situation was to provide dwelling’s direct access at ground level to the inner courtyard of the villa, guaranteeing a very significant number of houses with conditions of universal accessibility and contributing to the sense of community of the place.
Special care and attention are given to the older residents of these villas as the renovation of the houses can be understood as an important strategy for the prevention of physical degenerative processes by ensuring the link between memory (immaterial) and home (material). When the older population is removed from their homes, the degeneration processes accelerate and, in some cases, can be fatal.
The workers’ villas belong to the consolidated urban fabric but present severe signs of decay. Their renovation benefits the adjuncts’ neighbourhoods, which become (even) more attractive, also contributing to the overall sense of security. The villas are part of the history of the growth and development of the city of Lisbon, showing specific urban and architectural characteristics but also social and economic. They express the working force of those who contributed to the city’s economic and social consolidation.
Still, the primary focus is the people currently living in these villas. The interaction between residents and the social service from the council’s housing department is decisive as residents can share their anxieties and expectations, from their well-being to the possibility of participating in architectural decisions. Residents may choose to stay in the villa during construction – and usually prefer to keep the bond to their daily routine, even with all the buzz from the works and sometimes having to temporarily move twice - being accompanied during the entire process. In these cases, the tender specifications of the public work contract include these family movements, associated with construction phases, in a puzzle solved by the housing and construction services. This methodology is possible because there are empty houses in the villas, that once renovated, become available to families with low income through the council program of low rent housing. The houses are attributed according to the families’ vulnerabilities and needs, ensuring a home for the most vulnerable ones. In the end, all families benefit from improved and modern living conditions while keeping the sense and atmosphere that they remember of living in that place. In Vila Romão da Silva, the civil parish has been supporting the efforts and it will contribute to the management of the theatre and of the sports and recreation association, two important services for civil society at large.
Portugal, especially Lisbon as its capital, has been pushed into a perfect storm in housing unbalance, having entered the global estate market with galloping rising prices whereas the citizen’s earnings remained close to a horizontal progression. The country is currently investing in new housing legislation, new public politics, and new construction, in a rush to make up for the lack of national investment of the past two decades. The post-covid European recovery plan was designed by the government as to have 1,2 million euros directly dedicated to housing, financing new construction and rehabilitation, to be executed by local municipalities. This is specifically important in the context of this application because it demonstrates an alignment at all levels: strong European financial support, national political priority, local effort to materialize solutions in the territory. The municipality has produced a Local Housing Strategy in 2019, approved at national level, that consists of a quantitative study of housing insufficiencies in the city. Also, is currently being developed a Municipal Housing Charter, a legal element in housing politics that presents a holistic and territorial approach, a qualitative integration of housing resources, needs and goals for the next decade, having in mind the quality of the habitat, how solutions integrate with the existing urban fabric and social patrimony. There is a clear local political intention in investing in rehabilitation so that public housing is disperse in the city - opposed to concentrated - and this delicate program is the ex libris of the hard investment made soft by considering all physical and social pre-existences. The added value is the validation of these historic villa’s and their residents as an essential part of the contemporary Lisbon, as a city that travels through time while respecting all layers of its’s development and all the memories contained in these places by the passing generations.
There are mainly two council departments working in this program: the housing and the public works departments. Within the housing department, there are specific workers also responsible for social service and the public works department combines different fields of knowledge, from urbanism, architecture and landscape design to the various engineering, security and inspection. From the beginning until the end of the process, the intensive collaboration between these two departments is crucial. The first stage of surveying implies, on one hand, identifying and signalising the buildings and infrastructures’ debilities and critical problems, and, on the other, mapping the types of families that live in the workers’ villas, their vulnerabilities, anxieties and expectations. Even during the design phase, there is an active collaboration between the two, ensuring that the families’ concerns are considered and implemented, with both departments' experts looking for the best solutions. Then, experts from both departments accompany the construction works' development, doing weekly visits to both families and the construction site. The dialogue and the collaborative process between the two departments are essential as the program deals with a vulnerable population, mainly elders and people at risk of exclusion and poverty. Taking care of the people that need it the most by providing them with a home - and one with improved living conditions - is the most important added value of the process.
"Prioritising the places and people that need it the most” could be the headline of this project. The council’s housing program ensures access to housing by vulnerable people at risk of exclusion and poverty living in undignified conditions. Through the low rent and affordable housing programs — to which families of all types, nationalities and political and religious convictions can apply — the council already ensures that the most vulnerable families receive a home with affordable rent, having several operations in course to respond to this urgent problem (sometimes, renovating preexistent structures, other times building from scratch).
The specific program dedicated to the former workers’ villas takes the accessible and affordable housing program to a further stage. The population living in these villas are mainly elders to whom their displacement would have a psychological and physical impact (there is a proven link between degenerative processes and memory eradication relative to places). Thus, the population’s well-being is a major outcome! These villas present unique architectural features and atmospheres within the consolidated urban fabric of the city, symbolizing an era of the city’s development. On one part, the council maintains what is so particular about these villas, restoring the allure while modernizing the houses and on the other part allowing people to participate in the process and stay in the villa during its transformation. But as said, this transformation does not detract from the intrinsic spatial qualities of these villas. The main impact and outcome are for the families. But, of course, the council guarantees the provision of housing with affordable rents as a model of intergenerational occupancy, boosting the rental market and the rejuvenation of these areas, which benefit at large from the physical transformation and regeneration of the territory.
From what is possible to know (and the council regularly participates in European meetings on the problems of affordable and social housing), this project is unique in the European context. The city has recently participated in the International Social Housing Festival, held by Housing Europe in the summer of 2022, and has organized an International Conference “Social Housing and the Recovery Plans - pathways to solutions”, held in Lisbon in November 2022, and from these exchanges has resulted the awareness of the uniqueness of this present methodology. In most cases, people are relocated to other neighbourhoods during the renovation process of their houses and only after the complete renovation come back to their homes. During this mainstream process (and the council has several operations under this modus operandi), some relocated families choose to stay in the neighbourhoods where they had to start from zero and create new affective connections. However, there is a rupture hard to heal, especially for those who are older and used to living in the original places ever since. This project approaches the problem of affordable and social housing as also a care work. It is true that it is a function of the council to take care of the physical well-being of its population. But under this project, the council also takes care of psychological well-being. It cares for the affective link between people and their homes, for their individual memories. And at the same time, it cares for the collective memory and the city’s history. Even if this decision makes the entire renovation operation more complex and demanding to manage by the council housing and public works departments, implying measures that would not be necessary if the residents were removed from the villa and relocated during the renovation.
The project is led by two council departments —housing and public works — which work together from the beginning. Although focusing on different features of the problem, the departments collaborate closely as this methodology can only be successful under a shared process.The housing department takes a survey about the residents living in the villa, essential to defining the spatialization of the dynamics of flows of temporary resettlements and setting up the different phases of the renovation operation, which may vary. This is only possible when there is a certain percentage of vacant houses, ensuring the resettlement and occupation in terms of the architectural response and typologies that allow for a phased intervention only with resources endogenous to the villa. The families or individuals are accompanied through every phase, presenting their needs and expectations. These also play a part in architectural design.
In turn, the public works department maps the state of the buildings and infrastructures, their problems and the required transformations to adapt the preexistent structures to the current urban standards. The architectural design phase follows, being crucial to protect the set and the continuity of uses, reconciling them with the framework of requirements that must meet in modern times, such as safety, health, comfort, continuity of the urban fabric, and technical and legal construction standards, among others.
The construction phase is where this unique methodology plays out. Some families might move twice - from one house to another and then to another before finally moving for their home - with the two departments regularly visiting the construction site. This process creates a strong sense of community and an informal one between the council's workers and residents. After completing the renovation, the families move back to their homes and the vacant houses are distributed along with the families that applied for the affordable housing program.
The starting point matters. The workers’ villas present unique features within the urban fabric. They form a bubble where time and the effects of massive urbanisation, for the better and the worst, stopped. They present a cohesive whole from an architectural point of view, generally of low density with buildings well-proportioned, holding an ancestral atmosphere of a way of living that seems no longer possible in the city. These singularities demand a different modus operandi and emphasise the need to keep residents living in the villa during construction works as they belong and are a part of these places. The numerical relationship between occupied and vacant houses is another determining factor for the successful application of this methodology. For its success, it also contributes to a shared and close collaboration between specialists from different areas, focusing on the importance of social service associated with the operation. This methodology is unique, as far as is known, in the European context, as manifested by international participants in our November conference “Social Housing and the Recovery Plans - pathways to solutions”, and the council believes that it might be applied to several other examples. Albeit symbolising and testifying to the growth and development of the city of Lisbon, there are identical typologies to the workers’ villas in most cities that until the beginning of the twentieth century had industrial complexes in (or close to) the city’s centre. Sometimes, there are entire streets of public property that form a cohesive block of buildings that could be inspired by this methodology.
There are two major global challenges. The first is to eradicate poverty by providing affordable housing, and the second is to care for vulnerable people whose houses present severe signs of decay and undignified living conditions. The first challenge demands several possible solutions being a long-run problem. However, this project - even if local - helps to understand and evaluate situations and solutions for preexistent structures that, despite being in a severe state of decay, can be adapted and transformed, bringing new people and intergenerational inhabitants to the city’s centres. The specific methodology presented in the context of the workers’ villas - as mentioned before - can be applied to several cases, helping to take care of a vulnerable population and preventing degeneration. This methodology, of course, demands a social and political commitment of local governments necessarily strengthened with the know-how of their social, housing, and public works departments.
