In 1978, CEAPE (the Cooperative of Architectural, Planning, and Engineering Studies of Porto) delivered a voluminous dossier to the Braga City Council with the urbanisation plan for an extensive agricultural area of 20 hectares located on the fringes of the old city. On this plan, several property developers were built, making it one of the first and foremost areas of urban and residential expansion in Braga after the end of the Portuguese dictatorship period. This place, whose landscape has been drastically transformed since then, is today known as the Parretas neighbourhood.

AcustiCidade: (Re) Making Stories in Parretas is the result of an invitation from Circuito - Braga Media Arts to Space Transcribers to create a project about the places in Braga on the outskirts of its historical centre.
In collaboration with the artist Pedro Augusto, we created a sound walk comprised of six episodes about the Parretas neighbourhood in Braga.
Methodologically, the production of this project unfolded in 5 phases: first, architectural, urban, and cartographic research on the history of spatial and urban transformation of this area of the city; second, interviewing and collecting oral testimonies of several residents about their personal history and experience in the space of the neighbourhood; third, a workshop open to the public of listening and capturing the soundscape of the neighbourhood; fourth, the writing of a script of 6 episodes and its narration, which on the one hand synthesises all the information gathered (urban history, oral testimonies, and soundscape), and on the other hand confabulates on possible readings, some true, other fictional, of the history of this place; and finally, fifth, the production of a website and a fold-out map where participants can autonomously carry out the sound walk using a smartphone and headphones. The sound walk was produced in Portuguese and is also available in sign language.

The official website contains all of the information you need to listen to and participate in the sound walk. We wish you a pleasant walk!