Bartlett Research Conversations: Fernando P. Ferreira

Factory of Stories: Weaving counter-narratives for Vale do Ave.

Fernando P. Ferreira

Supervisors: Professor Yeoryia Manolopoulou and Dr Nina Vollenbroker

Abstract

Fernando’s practice-based research investigates how weaving, writing and architecture might provide modes to communicate social and spatial histories affected by processes of industrial transformation within the built environment. 

His thesis investigates the landscape of Vale do Ave, located in the northwest of Portugal, whose urban realm endures under the shadow of cyclical economic textile crises, and focusses on a textile factory (Coelima) which has been under a progressive process of industrial dismantlement and loss. Drawing on theoretical relationships between place, design, language and weaving, Fernando asks how the architect might explore and develop hand weaving as a ‘poethical’ practice of storytelling and design, to respond to the material and immaterial transitions experienced on-site. 

Fernando’s thesis forges meaningful collaborations with Coelima’s former textile workers and other interdisciplinary practitioners, to create additional connections with related fields in art, communication and architecture.

About The Bartlett Research Conversations

The Bartlett School of Architecture’s Research Conversations seminars comprise work-in-progress and upgrade presentations by students undertaking the MPhil/PhD Architectural Design and MPhil/PhD Architectural and Urban History and Theory. All current UCL staff and students are welcome to attend.

Held regularly throughout the academic year, the seminars are attended by the programme directors, Professor Jonathan Hill and Professor Sophia Psarra, PhD Coordinators, Dr. Nina Vollenbröker and Dr Sophie Read, and other PhD supervisors.

Image: The (hi)story of cotton (cotton and printed cotton paper, 2019). Woven and scanned by Fernando P. Ferreira