Luís Garcia

DISPLACED

An architectural approach on the impacts imposed by extractivism in rural areas

On my first trip to Covas do Barroso in October 2022, I drove through valleys and mountains, following the GPS along roads that seemed to dissolve into the landscape. As I approached the village, small hints began to tell a story—one of resistance and unease. On the backs of road signs, the walls of empty bus stops, and tarps rippling in the wind, the same message echoed over and over: 

''No to mines'

These words weren’t just protests against a lithium mine. They were a quiet, urgent reminder of a looming end. They hinted at the fragile balance between a community, its land, and the forces threatening to reshape them both. 

This graduation project is born from that journey, driven by a desire to understand the weight of those words and the space they occupy in our architectural and cultural landscapes. 

DISPLACED seeks to evoke a sense of permanence in an ever changing landscape. It traces how a PLACE is shaped not just by physical structures but by the rhythms of daily life, the memories embedded in landscapes, and the deep connections between people and their environment. It brings to a common language the DISPLACE actors, producing drawings based on reports that are filled with technical language. 

Rather than imposing new interventions as foreign objects, the project looks to the village itself, using vernacular architectural elements and their original uses as the foundation for design. These forms are reimagined to support daily life, reclaim future mining infrastructures, and offer a new narrative, PLACED in a landscape marked by transformation.  

This project also looks at the way these large developments are led, highlighting the critical changes needed to address their impact. An EMPLACED approach has the potential to reveal what numbers and graphs cannot. It has the power to show the weight of memories, the continuity of traditions, and the deep sense of belonging that anchors people to their environment. 
 

Graduation date: 17 December 2024
Graduation committee: Susana Constantino (mentor), Martin Probst, Marina Otero 
Additional members for the exam: Burton Hamfelt, Anna Zań