reground (Oitoo)

Cities are in a state of constant, often unpredictable transformation.
Everything we build — whether driven by private ambition or collective necessity — inevitably evolves over time, its use and function shifting, often giving way to periods of abandonment and decay. Every citizen contributes to this ongoing process: families moving in or out, new businesses opening, local authorities changing, or investments reshaping the urban landscape. New protagonists emerge, ideas circulate, and economic interests redefine how we live and interact with the city. Yet these transformations often go unnoticed, their impact on daily life absorbed almost subconsciously.

The potential of our urban surroundings far exceeds their original purpose. Degraded working-class neighborhoods can transform into artist incubators, and later become highly sought-after districts. Where most perceive obsolescence, a few recognize latent qualities. Over time, businesses and investment follow, reshaping the social dynamics of a place. We are not mere spectators: we have the ability to intervene, identify challenges, and uncover the keys to urban change. Living on the ground floor may be one such key — a small but significant lever for transformative urban renewal.

The Reground Porto project explored this potential in a neighborhood in northern Porto. Its focus was on empty ground-floor spaces — originally shops or warehouses — with street-facing façades and rear courtyards. These spaces offer generous floor areas, open plans, high ceilings, and courtyards brimming with potential, providing an opportunity to create accessible, high-quality housing in the heart of the city.

These spaces provoke reflection on both challenges and possibilities: mediating between public and private realms, organizing interiors, optimizing natural and artificial light, experimenting with materials, exploiting vertical volume creatively, and reimagining courtyards as extensions of the home — outdoor rooms open to the sky. The project seeks to reveal the overlooked potential of these spaces and stimulate public debate, showing that vibrant urban life depends on creativity, civic engagement, and the active occupation of the ground floor.

A city only awakens when we look at what exists with curiosity and optimism, recognizing hidden opportunities, densifying, inhabiting, and building within the already-built. Reground Porto demonstrates that sustainable urban regeneration begins in the everyday — through the attentive eyes of those who live, work, and walk through the city.