The thesis begins with the observation that civic form in Porto is increasingly shaped by commercial pressures and top-down planning. What was once organic and collectivised is increasingly orchestrated by bureaucratic, homogenised systems that prioritise efficiency over engagement, and centralisation over local autonomy.

In response, the thesis proposes a rethinking of civic form and how it could restore civic agency to the people by embedding it within existing realities of everyday life. It identifies local parish social clubs as sites of untapped civic potential, which unlike the increasingly centralised and bureaucratic councils, have evolved out of necessity and proximity into resilient grassroots institutions, through activism, outreach, and cultural stewardship. Through legitimising and amplifying the civic authority these clubs have cultivated, the project transforms their latent civic capacity into a visible, spatial reality.

In bringing together these various local actors, the project takes the Smithsons’ ‘Conglomerate Order’ as a framework for creating an assemblage of autonomous architectural characters to form an organic yet intuitive whole. The Public Conglomerate is a civic centre for Fontainhas, that transforms a contested public space and re-imagines a derelict abattoir and adjacent site to embody this new attitude to civic life.

It is an open platform for public existence across various scales and conditions – a symbol of civic authorship where architecture becomes a formal tool for a new collective autonomy.

“A building of the conglomerate order seems natural … we experience the feeling of a fabric being ordered even when we do not understand it”
– Peter Smithson, ILAUD 1886, Conglomerate Ordering