Casa da Periferia 

Center for Morpho-Typological Studies

Casa da Periferia (House on the Periphery) is a research project dedicated to the contextualisation, documentation, understanding, and typification of single-family peripheral dwellings in southern European space since the mid-20th century, examined through the lenses of architectural theory.

_________________________________________________

Coordination:

Pedro Duarte Bento, Architect-Researcher
PhD in Architecture, FAUL (PT) 

Contacts:

info@casadaperiferia.org

00351 966 030 107

_________________________________________________

Objectives and Lines of Study:

Identify, interpretate and classify unnoticed, misread or new typological variants of single-family houses implemented in peripheral territories from the post-war period to the present day, employing the specific Type-and-Model theoretical framework of the discipline of Architecture. Deepen methodologies of comparative, spatial, morphological, and technical-constructive analysis. Establish parallelisms among southern European countries and analyse the causal interconnections between different housing types using a rhizomatic structural approach. Draw on scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities to map the cultural, socioeconomic, and technological contexts that have driven typological evolution. 

Along contextual reference (legislative, sociological, technological, and territorial), the lines of study for the peripheric house in south european space are defined in two morpho-typological groups:

1) New Vernacular (term by Nuno Portas for the Portuguese context of “emigrant-houses” and illegal/self-built constructions in the 1970s–90s 

—alongside other types recently identified [such as the Generic House 1960-1986]);

2) Designed House (Casa Desenhada), the widespread emergence, mainly from the 2000s onward, of the mandatory architectural-project for single-family houses, coinciding with the massification of the professional figure of the "architect".

_________________________________________________

Publications: 

Cadernos, Vol. 1: 2025
A Híper-Casa Portuguesa
Formato digital, 40 pgs. (PT)

_________________________________________________

Archives:

1) 'Casa Genérica, 1960-1986'

Over 450 examples of the “Casa Genérica” folk type documented throughout continental Portugal since 2018, arraying all its morphological diversity across the pre-established spectrum.

2) 'New Folk Construction: A Visual Archive of Anonymous Photography on Anonymous Architecture'

Partially funded by the European Union (G.A.P. Ref. no. 2024-51861) with the support of the Goethe-Institut, in partnership with UMAR – Union of Mediterranean Architects. 

_________________________________________________

Legal notice: 

Centro de Estudos Casa da Periferia is a non-profit scientific association under CAE 72200 (scientific research), CAE 58140 (academic publications), and CAE 85520 (education), registered in Lisbon, Portugal. All rights reserved, 2025