Eighth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

This study is motivated by the constant changes taking place in the Veiga de Creixomil, a low fertile agriculture land, which has been suffering from the pressure of the urban expansion of the city of Guimarães, Portugal. This process has fragmented the territory modifying the land division, ways of life, and the pre-existent characteristics of the water and soil systems. The resulting interstices, are indeterminate spaces, between the agricultural land and the urban fabric. The aim of this study is to consider and move beyond the apparent weaknesses of their abandonment and disuse to acknowledge their potential uses, not only for agriculture, for the diversity of flora and fauna, but also for collective uses. In them, we may recognize the traces of past, as well as present appropriations, and future possibilities. They are not only a palimpsest of time but also an example of how disruption may generate other unpredictable opportunities. Therefore, they are more than just spatial interstices. They are time interstices between that which is no more and that which may become.