Communal courtyards are a prevalent feature of Lisbon’s housing estates.
Designed to encourage neighbourly interactions, these courtyards were once places full conversation and life, until recent years where migration and transient populations created challenges in social integration.
Working with local residents, I, together with an interdisciplinary international team of designers, designed and built a mobile kitchen and garden lighting installation seeking to reinstate the long-gone communal eating rituals and encourage neighbourly interaction.
Food was used to break down language and cultural barriers, and hanging plants were designed so that neighbours had to water plants for eachother.