Biography

Adelino Gonçalves has a degree (1995) and a Ph.D. in Architecture (2012) from the University of Coimbra (UC). He is a researcher at the Centre of Architectural Studies - from Territory to Design (CEARQ-TD), of the University of Coimbra and a Collaborator Researcher at the Centre of Studies in Geography and Spatial Planning (CEGOT) and the Center for Social Studies (CES); Assistant Director of the Heritage and Development Initiative at the Interdisciplinary Research Institute, and Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture of UC, where he is responsible for curricular units of the Integrated Master's in Architecture (mIA) and the Master in Integrated Urban Rehabilitation, of which is Coordinator with Margarida Relvão Calmeiro. He is also a Professor at the Ph.D. City and Urban Cultures (UC) and responsible for mIA curricular units at M_EIA - International School of Arts, Technology and Culture (Cape Verde) and the Master in Territory Development and Urban Management, University Lúrio (Mozambique). He is the author and co-author of several publications resulting from his research, of which he highlights [Património Urban(ístic)o e Desenvolvimento] Urban(istic) Heritage and Development. University of Coimbra Press, 2018. His research focuses on urban policies and territorial development and has been built based on an integrated analysis of the challenges of urban rehabilitation and urban heritage. From the results of his research, he highlights the thesis that he has been defending for some time and opposes a political culture that seeks to face problems of cities and the territorial development challenges with direct and energetic actions, neglecting the necessary long-term actions to confront the bases and structures of these same problems, that is, their causes. Both urban rehabilitation and the safeguarding of urban heritage correspond to public policies that emphasize the physical component of old urban areas, neglecting that the problems that have arisen in them have social and economic causes and that the cultural value that is recognized in these urban areas is the result of social and political construction. Therefore, he argues that both the resolution of the problems of old urban areas and their cultural valuing must result from the impact of interventions on the causes of the problems and the involvement of communities in the social construction of heritage. His production has resulted from applied and collaborative research, with intervention in different contexts, allowing him to build organizational skills and interdisciplinary dialogue fundamental for creating intervention proposals that have been welcomed. He highlights the fact that in his production, he defended theses that appear in the Legal Regime of Urban Rehabilitation; have coordinated Master's theses in Architecture resulting in community empowerment interventions in Cape Verde and, recently, in the scope of an action project called Back to the rural or how to reinforce the cohesion of the regional city?, to be responsible for the coordination of works that have had a direct influence on the empowerment of the local community and some local policy options.