Reutilização das arquitecturas de produção

: turismo rural : Quinta do Vale da Figueira

Abstract

The reuse of ancient buildings with historic, architectural or cultural importance is increasing with the desire of adjusting them to new realities of the present day. Thus, it is noticed a growing bet in the rehabilitation of ancient mansions, farms or country houses, associated with a new touristic reality that has been developed in the last years: rural tourism. It is the appropriation of rural spaces to implement touristic programs that contribute not only to preserve and maintain these spaces, but also to the social, economical and cultural development of their regions. The work presented and developed as final exam to the integrated masters in architecture, from the architecture department of Viseu’s University, is part of the theme “productive architecture reuse”, and concerns the rehabilitation proposal to Quinta Nova, or Quinta do Vale da Figueira, as it was in the past. It is a farm mainly used for agriculture that developed itself during the past two century, and riches its peak in the one, when the amount of activities that it housed gave to the farm a self sustainability character, making of it one of the most important farms of the entire region. However, this reality disappeared, being replaced with a desertion appearance that leads to extinction of the history, the spirit and the experiences that happened in that farm during its active period. Accordingly, this paper concentrate itself in the creation of a proposal that tries to fight against that disrespectful scene, being sustained with a theoretical framework that helps the sustainability and efficiency of the project itself. This way, it is studied many themes related to the conservation, rehabilitation and restoration of buildings, the tourism sector and the spirit of the places (or genius locci), as well as a case-study related to the “productive arquitecture reuse” theme. Finally, and after a various scaled analyses of the landscape, the implantation and of the farm house, it is presented the proposal to the rehabilitation of Quinta do Vale da Figueira, based in the studied theories, in the existent potentials and in the story of the evolution of the farm itself, which the mainly objective is to regain the experiences, the spirit of the farm and, above all, the sustainability that personalize that space.

Date of Award	2014
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Ana Pinho (Supervisor) & Vítor Manuel Mestre de Oliveira (Co-Supervisor)