day 1
The Opening.

For the first time, we opened the doors of our temporary house in Porto to the city. Amongst more than 50 spontaneous guests, friends and fellow architects, we proudly sat five eminent guests at our sofa in the living room: (1) the State Secretary of Culture Jorge Barreto Xavier, who praised the underlying risk and pertinence of the project; (2) the Culture Alderman Paulo Cunha e Silva who stated the relevance of the project in face of the current conditions of the city of Porto; (3) the Housing and Social Action Alderman Jose Manuel Pizarro that referred to the traditional saying "so many empty houses and so many homeless people"; (4) the Urbanism Alderman Manuel Correia Fernandes who talked about a new kind of citizen which he named the "passer-by", a growing typology that requires new housing frameworks; and (5) the chief curator of the Portuguese Representation in Venice, Pedro Campos Costa, who presented Homeland - News From Portugal, the Portuguese Pavilion. The informality provided by the domestic setting of the residence put the guests at ease - even if a little tight sharing the same sofa - which was interesting and made us think that indeed the setting might create a particular democratic and informal atmosphere between guests with different backgrounds and interests.