Regenerating vernacular villages for ecotourism spaces - The case of Aldeia Da Pena in São Pedro do Sul - Portugal

Abstract

In the last decades, Portugal has witnessed frequent rural depopulation with the abandonment of agricultural land, forest, and even some villages. On the other hand, the ordinary citizen, in a tourist view, begins to look more and more for spaces linked to the virgin nature and even to spaces associated with traditional agriculture, being, therefore, an opportunity to revitalize certain spaces, especially when they are of unique vernacular heritage. The case of Pena Village, almost in its totality, preserves its architectural trace and original materials. All the houses are built with local stones, essentially schist rocks, including their roofs, fitting into the landscape in an invisible and perfect way, which makes any citizen there to feel like an element of nature itself. Thus, in the present paper, after a brief characterization of the Village of Pena, the methodological aspects and the formulated concept are presented, and then a proposal for the revitalization of the village is presented, with the purpose that it functions as a global housing unit, consisting of several separate buildings, with various infrastructures and equipment needed for Ecotourism.