First days of August, first days of three intense weeks: 32 students from more than 20 different countries worked alongside fifteen mentors and with a great support from the Critical Concrete team, all united by the same goal: establishing an ecological and sustainable model to refurbish social housing.

The activities were coordinated by mentors Hugo Dourado/coletivo mel and Samuel Kalika/Critical Concrete on the work site, while Ana Antunes/A³-Ateliê and Gianluca Stasi/ctrl +Z were working in the Production Centre. All lectures from previous years are available on the Youtube channel.

The house they have been working on is located in the traditional Fishermen’s neighborhood in Matosinhos. It was built without any kind of insulation solution so the main goal was to turn the building in a comfortable place to live with the application of eco-concepts and prototypes.

Since the beginning of the project, they have focused on developing and researching ecological and sustainable alternatives to build like mycelium, wool and cardboard-panels insulation, this year they developed a cardboard and lime based insulation.The insulation process was the one that lasted the most, as it was developed as a purely manual process: wet the cardboard, shred it, mixing it with sand, hydraulic and hydrated lime and plaster, then applying the mix in the formwork.

As many of such out-of-condition houses exist in Portugal in addition to a lot of disregarded public spaces, Critical Concrete are setting their next steps, looking for having a bigger social impact. Stay updated for the coming project!