Admiration to Abandonment. The Alvorada factory

Carla Ferreira

One transversal issue to contemporary urbanism and architecture is the abandonment. When arriving at the city of Fafe, it is possible to see an abandoned factory. This factory, Alvorada Factory, is a "vulgaris" one, implemented next to a river with a chimney made of bricks, having the benefit of being well placed amongst the city's urban form. A factory which, back in time was distinguished from others due to its open gate and the great bustle inside it, is now noticed by its closed gate and its ongoing decay.

This investigation project's main goal is to understand Alvorada Factory's abandonment process as well as its current significance. Through collective memory exploitation, it is aimed to understand and realize how it would be possible to give life back to this building. Therefore, this work aims to answer the following questions: "What can be done with abandoned buildings?" and "Which are the available solutions to reactive abandoned spaces?"

The intention is to determine peculiarities and opportunities to interpret and express the past by recovering, analyzing and reflecting on the memories, proceeding then to the abandoned architectonic space's reactivation and recovering its social character. Intervention "in situ" contemplates to recover collectivity and give back to the city an open gate image, showing and revealing Alvorada Factory's current adaptation, representing such action an integral part of the building and community’s continuous present.