37º IAHS World Congress on Housing: - Universidad de Cantabria

XXXVII <strong>IAHS</strong><strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> on HousingOctober 26 – 29, 2010, Santander, SpainCODE: 105CORK USAGE IN TRADITIONAL PORTUGUESEARCHITECTUREFerreira, R. Fontes; Silva, J. GuerreiroCdT Centro da Terra Association and University of Oporto, Portugale-mails: suberui@gmail.com; joanaguerreirosilva@gmail.comKey words: Cork, Portuguese Traditional Architecture, Local Materials.AbstractThe use of cork in Portuguese traditional architecture has been regularly mentioned in worksbased on historical documents, but such documents are generically treated, with the subjectconsigned to the category of epiphenomena as something isolated, peculiar, localised or evenfortuitous. In the last decade, our research has demonstrated that cork is not an unknown andmarginal construction material. If it were, how can one justify its diachronic use in severalcork producing regions, associated to other types of construction materials?As far as Portuguese traditional architecture is concerned, one of the oldest record we foundrefers to the application of cork as coating in silos in the Islamic and medieval settlements; inaddition, there are investigations that record the increasing employment of cork in traditionalconstruction in the middle Tagus and in the south of Portugal by the end of the Middle Ages.Furthermore, there are other key records, namely drawings from the beginning of the 16thcentury and a few written references, which reveal the application of cork in houses in thenorth of Portugal. Within the context of traditional architecture, we also traced the usage ofcork in religious architecture, in particular in some monasteries of the mendicant ordersbecause those aimed to be similar to the poor buildings for common people, thus revealing thereality of construction at that time.While studying the written or drawn registries and also the remaining constructions, weanalyzed and interpreted the assembly systems. The set of case studies we gathereddemonstrates the diversified number of applications that cork has once had in buildings, aswell as reveals its recurrent utilization and expresses the maturity of these techniques.With this paper we aim to further examine these matters, encouraging a wider engineering andartistic investigation in order to recover several ancient techniques as a basis for alternativeways of contemporary construction.37º <strong>IAHS</strong> <strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> On Housing Science 60