Fishing Architecture
FISH-A: The Ecological Continuum between Buildings and Fish Species
To what extent can fish produce architecture? This project sets out to trace a socioecological history of North Atlantic architecture in relation to fisheries, elucidating the relationships between marine environments and terrestrial landscapes and assessing the ecological impact of fishing constructions and the natural resources they depend upon.
Fishing Architecture covers a broad spectrum in terms of both geography and time, a choice that was made to avoid deterministic analysis and engage with transnational phenomena. Thus, the focus is on the North Atlantic—its shores housing diverse architectural cultures and its waters home to a wealth of fish species—and follows a time frame that runs from the industrialization of fisheries in the early 19th century to the full globalization of the industry at the end of the 20th.
The extant scholarship on marine ecology, fisheries, and fishing communities includes extensive research on fish populations, navigation systems, technology, bioeconomics, architecture, and cultural practices. Yet, comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis of the field is hindered by its own specialization. Facing the impending challenges of the environmental predicament, this project will use the material history of architecture as a powerful tool for advancing interdisciplinary research and, along with it, our understanding of the ecological impacts of human activity.
The assessment will be organized along five analytical axes: (1) marine ecosystems; (2) fishing technology; (3) food processing; (4) politics; and (5) consumption habits, effectively avoiding the conventional architectural approach to understanding the built environment. This strategy allows us to identify critical knowledge gaps to be worked on and, most significantly, fosters a fresh perspective on construction in which fishing landscapes and buildings are understood as material traces of dynamic socioecological relationships and as part of the continuum between land and sea.
André Tavares
Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto, April 2021
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) through a Consolidator Grant under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 101044244).
FISH-A is hosted by the University of Porto at the Center for Studies in Architecture and Urbanism (CEAU)
Team
Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, Portugal
André Tavares (PI)
Architecture
Alice Nouvet
Architecture
Claudia Soares
Biology
Garðar Eyjólfsson
PhD Candidate
Giulia Secci
Marine Biology
Neftalí Sillero
Spatial Biology
Rafael Sousa Santos
Architecture
Sónia Gabriel
Zooarcheology
Accomplices
Elsa Froufe
CIIMAR, Portugal
Diego Inglez de Souza
Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, Portugal
Daniel Duarte Pereira
Spacetranscribers, Portugal
Diana Feijó
IPMA, Portugal
Mónica Felício
IPMA, Portugal
Collaboration
Inês Salema Guilherme
Architect
Patrícia Reis
Master's Student in Architecture
Will Gibbs
Architect
Past team members
Aitor Ochoa Argany
Architecture
Ana Azevedo
Marine Biology
Paul Montgomery
Maritime Archeology