Frederico is living at college: “It’s a provocation” to the housing crisis | Report

Frederico Catarino has been living in the garden of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto for a week — and he is not alone. Not as a last resort in the face of galloping housing prices, a safeguard, but as a criticism of the crisis and “caricature, both utopian and dystopian, of the situation of some students in Portuguese higher education”.

The “residence popup”, as he prefers to call it, was set up on April 12th and is located behind the main FAUP building. “I live here by choice and I know that I am privileged to be able to choose to live on the street. This space is the subject of my master’s thesis and, by sleeping here, I end up taking care of the belongings of the people who live here too”, he explains to P3.

At 2:20 pm, the final-year architecture student is the only resident in the roofless, open-air space, ready to receive six people. He is sitting at the table, which was assembled with metal planks and construction foundations, drinking coffee and listening to music. Behind are the makeshift bunk beds. They were built with two-story scaffolding — enough to create six sheltered spaces with some privacy for sleeping.

Frederico, 24 years old, occupies one of the compartments on the ground floor. They all have a mattress and are completely covered by a curtain. During the day, the metal structure also functions as a place to spread out bath towels and the space between the grass and the rooms is used to store shoes.

The idea for the residency began to form in January, when I was thinking about topics for my master’s thesis. At that time, the landlady told him that he would have to leave the apartment where he lives, downtown, next to Torre dos Clérigos, by July 15th, the date on which the property will begin construction. Before deciding whether to return to her parents’ house who live in Torres Novas, Santarém, or to look for a house in Porto again, she set up her rooms in the college garden.

“In principle, it is a project that has a beginning and an end and was carried out with authorization from the faculty management. There is a critical side, of course, but it also ends up being an experimental thing. In the first week I had people who stayed here for one night and didn’t need it, but now I’m starting to have students who really need a place. There is a girl from the outskirts of Porto, from Ermesinde, who has been looking for a room for months and a boy who lives in Braga”, she reveals.

According to the young man, those who sleep here only stay for a few days. The vast majority of the time they are students who live far from the university and have little public transport to get home. Others are students who stay late working on projects and end up spending the night in the “residence”.

After listening to the stories of his colleagues during the night, Frederico is left with the feeling that he is one of the few displaced students who was lucky enough to find a room in the city center at a price he considers affordable. He is paying 395 euros for a single room. The find, he says, was recent, but in the same house there are also people who sleep in makeshift tents and rooms without windows, the same conditions that have been offered to them in recent months.

Conversations about housing during the day, dinners and music at night

In addition to accommodation, the space he imagined and programmed includes conversations organized by the Coletivo student association and dinners between students, teachers and anyone else who wants to get together in the outdoor kitchen of the school. “residence”. “On the one hand, it’s fun because we have a lot of events, but on the other hand, no one wants student accommodation to get to this point”, he warns.

The housing crisis is a recurring topic of discussion because, he argues, “architecture is not just about building houses and choosing windows”. His role is to make a political statement and present solutions, he argues. “My thesis will focus on what happened here and what it was like to create this residence. Then there will be a more theoretical side about why we need to create spaces like this and discuss this subject. It is a provocation, a caricature, an irony and not a solution to the current housing problem.”

Frederico Catarino

“Table discussions” take place every night from 7pm, but places are limited to 20 people. To guarantee a place for dinner, simply send a private message to the Instagram account @proxima_faup, created by the student. The amount charged depends on the ingredients needed to prepare the meal.

Last night’s dinner menu was pesto of broad beans with spaghetti and chef on duty is one of the architecture teachers. But there are no more places. Seconds after Frederico reveals what dinner is, a student arrives and asks if there is still room for one more. The number of guests thus rose to 21.

On the bench, which is also made of planks, there is a small stove, oven and camping gas cylinder, a large pan and some plastic dishes and cups. Behind the bedrooms is the dishwashing area with a few plates and cutlery to dry and, covered by a curtain, the shower heated by sunlight. As the college is open 24 hours a day, you can use the bathrooms whenever you want.

Residence that is “more than home”

In addition to the demountable residence that Frederico built in the garden with the help of colleagues, Architecture students are presenting more projects under the workshop More than Houses: freedom, plurality, prospective.

The project brings together 25 Architecture schools in the country and more than 600 students and researchers who, until Wednesday, April 24, are presenting projects on “what the future of housing could be in the next 50 years”. “It’s the perspective of how to inhabit public space, what needs there are and what should be debated”, explains Teresa Calix, vice-director of the college.

Regarding residence popup, Frederico Catarino only regrets not having asked colleagues and the Colectivo for help from the beginning to find materials and assemble the metal structure. “The original idea was to create five structures like this, spread across Porto, but more illegal. It would be assembled, inhabited, disassembled and they would not have a bathroom or shower. The first two nights here I slept alone until a boy from Colectivo showed up to help me,” he recalls. In the last few nights he has had the company of people who found out about the project. The “residence” should be dismantled on Sunday, April 28th.