Portimão hosts international workshop on urban earthquake resilience

The international workshop ‘Living with Earthquakes – Learning from the historic town for a contemporary sustainable agenda’ is taking place in Portimão from September 1 to 5. The initiative, organized as part of an Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP), brings together specialists, students, and local stakeholders to discuss strategies for making urban spaces safer, more resilient, and more sustainable in the face of seismic phenomena.

Portimão’s historic center serves as the primary case study due to its dense urban fabric, diverse architecture, and historical relationship with the Arade River and the coastline. The program aims to move beyond viewing earthquakes solely as destructive events, instead examining how these occurrences have historically transformed landscapes, communities, and living patterns to inform modern prevention and adaptation cultures.

The workshop is coordinated by Ana Bordalo and Maria Rita Pais, involving several institutions including Terr. A. ID, ECATI, Universidade Lusófona, and the CIAUD (Center for Research in Architecture, Urbanism and Design) at the University of Lisbon, in partnership with the local ISMAT (Instituto Superior Manuel Teixeira Gomes). Discussions include international perspectives on reconstruction, such as lessons learned from the 2010 earthquake and tsunami in Chile and historical architectural reconstruction in Japan.