Join us for a special conversation and book launch to celebrate the release of Sara Almodovar Pereira’s ‘Revolution Under Construction’
Sara Almodovar Pereira will be joined by councillor Aydin Dikerdem and community activist Shiri Shalmy (Cooperation Town), for a conversation about alternative ways of thinking about and building housing. Their discussion will be inspired by the SAAL process (Serviço Ambulatório de Apoio Local, or Local Ambulatory Support Service), a pioneering participatory housing and architectural movement in Portugal.
Weeks after the fall of Portugal’s dictatorship in 1974, a remarkable housing policy was inaugurated. The SAAL (Mobile Local Support Service) connected impoverished people with architects, engineers, and builders to design and produce the new homes the needed. The resulting estates demonstrate a truly participatory architecture and a vision of housing as right and provision.
Revolution Under Construction collects the experiences and reflections of those who participated in the SAAL, at the protests and meetings, on the building sites and barracks. Sara Almodovar Pereira assembles a moving and immersive oral history that reminds us of ways of building and living that could transform the future.