mission

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* To value education as a field of action, transformation and research; a space for imagination, artistic creation and critical enquiry; and a form of long-term investment.

* To expand spatial practices beyond the boundaries of architecture, connecting them with art, education, research and community action.

* To empower communities, institutions and practitioners as active agents in shaping the spaces and territories they inhabit, fostering dialogue, collaboration and mutual learning.

* To develop and disseminate critical, experimental, collaborative and transdisciplinary spatial practices.

* To hold together utopian imagination and radical action, treating them not as opposites but as inseparable forces for questioning and transforming space.

* To embrace error, failure and the unfinished as part of the creative process — conditions of learning and invention rather than outcomes to avoid.

* To turn imagination into concrete and situated action, holding that we do not first imagine and then build — imagination becomes real, operative and spatial through the act itself.

* To produce research, artistic and curatorial practices, educational programmes, publications, exhibitions, workshops and spatial interventions.

* To encourage freedom of expression, critical thinking, collective authorship and democratic participation.

* To contribute to reflection and action on contemporary challenges — the climate crisis, housing, inequality, technological change and the future of institutions.

* To humanise academic knowledge and cultural dissemination by building bridges between academia, communities and diverse territorial actors through art-based practices and research.

*To raise awareness of the social, cultural and political importance of spatial practice, architecture and the architectural profession in shaping more inclusive, sustainable and liveable environments.

We work across educational, artistic, cultural, academic, institutional and community contexts—from the classroom and the cultural space to the neighbourhood, public space, the city and the territory. We act wherever spatial practices can be expanded, connected and transformed, strengthening the capacity of communities, practitioners and institutions to actively shape the environments they inhabit.

Our mission is to create an independent platform where art, architecture, education and research become forms of critical inquiry and collective action.

Two fundamental commitments guide our work: expanding spatial practice beyond its traditional disciplinary boundaries and strengthening the agency of communities, practitioners and institutions to imagine, test and transform the spaces and realities they inhabit; and exploring education as a critical field of research, collective action and long-term transformation.

“What If?” workshop — Manifesto as a method for collective reflection, shared imagination and spatial action, 2025. Photo © Joana Nunes.