From Siza and Erskine to URBiNAT: Participatory architectural design and the European social housing co-production

Abstract

Considering the post–1960s reforming context, this article intends to revisit the social housing projects of São Vítor (1975) in Porto, by Álvaro Siza, one of the projects carried out under the SAAL programme (Serviço de Apoio Ambulatório Local – SAAL), and of Byker Wall (1968) in Newcastle, by Ralph Erskine, to understand how the dialogue between technicians (architects and sociologists), the citizens (individuals and associations) and the intuitions that regulated the process was instituted and developed, minding the correlations between them, the debates and resolutions which were experimented and the impact they had on the evolution of both processes. From São Vítor to Byker Wall the text covers the main stages of these participatory practices and identifies the projects’ method and recognize how politicians and civic society got involved in these urban scale housing programmes, addressing new forms of co–design and co–governing. Finally, the text explores how URBiNAT H2020 project (Healthy corridors as drivers of social housing neighbourhoods for the co–creation of social, environmental and marketable NBS, 2018–23) is taking advantage of take the inspirational lessons of both case studies and, following the new UNESCO agenda for “Sustainable Cities and Communities”, is co–developing urban regenerative processes on 7 European cities.