Resumen de Tiempografía en são pedro da afurada: lecturas y prácticas interpretativas del habitar
This thesis emanates from the premise that the impact of an architectural project is manifested not only in the organization of space and, by extension, in the social relationships established therein, but mainly in the structure and disposition of time in everyday life. Nowadays, the perception of time, increasingly fragmented and commodified, is deeply affected by the rhetoric and demands of the capitalist economy. The consequences of this condition are revealed in the simplest practices that connect the architecture with the human being, in short, the inhabiting itself. We encounter the same effects on the scale of neighbourhoods, as well as on that of contemporary cities (metropolises, smart cities, sustainable cities, etc.), where complex and competitive dynamics unfold. In the name of progress, the urban strategies implemented in the urban centres, their peripheries and also, regarding our case, on the waterfronts, promote a homogenizing aesthetic of the local that derives from the usurpation of natural and historical zones in order to convert them into profitable plots. This operation occurs through processes that generate spatial and social segregation, increasing inequality and conflicts.
In this context, our intention is to record how time is implemented, reversed and translated into practices that construct the architectural experience. Our approach adopts the ethnographic method as an analytical tool of the socio-spatial structure of the studied community, which is based on the participant observation and the recording of individual and collective oral histories. More specifically, we introduce the concept of tiempografía that proposes an analysis of place on the basis of temporal (relating to time) parameters. It constitutes a technique which is complementary to situationist psychogeography and seeks to highlight the importance of physical presence in situ as a necessary condition to encounter the moments of the past that compose the memory of today. Meanwhile, by this process we attempt to observe and comprehend the changes that determine the creation of places, situations and relationships and which are capable of not interrupting the cadences of collective life.
The study focuses on Afurada, a fishing village at the mouth of the Douro (Portugal) that is currently undergoing a process of urban transformation that threatens the habits, rhythms and practices of the communal life. The particularity of this case lies in the fact that, against the ongoing changes, there are certain forms of resistance that are related to the daily use of time and space, but they are not necessarily associated to a conscious position of reclaim. However, as long as there are still individuals, groups and communities that somehow resist this reality, it is worth considering their ways of doing and learning from local practices. Despite the specificities of each case, this study can offer an example that contributes to the dismantling of the dominant discourse that leads to the precariousness of inhabiting and the imminent destruction of the fishing communities on the coast.
