Repair before replacement: a century of the Porto ilhas

For a century, Porto’s back-lot ilhas were treated as slums awaiting clearance. Many are still there, and many have been repaired by the people who live in them. This closing lecture follows one municipal programme that fixed 140 dwellings without moving a single tenant — its drawings, budgets, disputes and mistakes — and argues that repair deserves the same design attention we give to new building.