30 young people of 17 nationalities will join in Braga to rethink first-generation shopping centres in a project by the Portuguese Capital of Culture.
Between July 18 and 25, Braga hosts the Shopyard Summer School, an international summer school that brings together young architects to reflect on the current and future role of the city’s first generation shopping centres.
Symbols of a model of urbanisation and consumption from the 1980s and 1990s, these buildings are now facing phenomena of underutilisation and functional obsolescence. The Summer School proposes a critical reading of these spaces and their spatial potential for regeneration as social infrastructures with new uses, programmes and meanings.
The call, open between 14 April and 30 May, received 65 applications from 23 nationalities. 30 participants were selected from 17 countries, including Portugal, Brazil, Lithuania, Canada, Malaysia, Kenya, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France and Estonia, who will be in Braga to develop spatial and social proposals for three shopping centres in the city: Santa Cruz, Santa Bárbara and Galécia.
These will be the case studies of this summer school, with each working group focusing on one of them, under the guidance of three European studios recognised for their critical practice in the field of urban regeneration: oitoo (Portugal), BUREAU (Switzerland/Portugal) and OUEST (Belgium). Starting from the local reality, the aim is to activate the debate around the transformation of the territory, exploring collective, situated and experimental approaches.
Alongside the project work, the programme includes talks, presentations and film screenings, with free admission and open to the general public. One of the central moments will be the second Shopyard Assembly, which will feature guests such as critic and design curator Frederico Duarte, who will share an ethnographic and critical reading of the Babilónia shopping centre in Amadora; researcher Janina Gosseye (TU Delft), who will explore the role of shopping centres in shaping Europe’s post-war public space; and anthropologist Ana Catarino, who will discuss the impact of these spaces on urban daily life and community relations.
The Shopyard Summer School is part of the Shopyard project, in the context of Braga 25 Portuguese Capital of Culture, curated by Space Transcribers, who since 2024 have been developing a critical reflection on the first-generation shopping centres in Braga, through artist residencies, participatory workshops, urban walks and public assemblies.
For this summer school, Space Transcribers invited INSTITUTO as a partner in the co-organisation and pedagogical design of the programme, reinforcing the intersection between artistic practice, critical architecture and community involvement.