[ TRACE(S) ]

> PATRICIA DA SILVA
> MAKRO AREA

In the housing neighbourhood near the Makro area lies the base of an old fountain — now incomplete. Originally designed by Moura Coutinho, the architect behind some of Braga’s most iconic 20th-century buildings, such as the Theatro Circo, the fountain once held a central position in Republic Square [Praça da República]. According to local voices, part of its structure was lost or damaged during its relocation. Others say it simply fell apart — somewhere between blurred memories and forgetfulness. Drawing on this historical fragment and its current presence in the public space of the development, architect Patricia da Silva proposes a sensitive reinterpretation: to restore meaning to this broken remnant, giving it a new role in everyday community life.

Ten curved steel sheets, four millimetres thick, are joined as if stitched around the fountain’s base — now transformed into a bench — forming an opaque curtain. This structure shelters and protects the interior but does not enclose it: through a portal-like window, it invites passers-by to enter, to cross the steel membrane and discover a new ecosystem emerging at its heart. Inside, a garden is revealed — a space for contemplation, shielded from the pace of the square, fully visible only from the balconies of the surrounding buildings. A meeting place for human and more-than-human neighbours.

Trace(s) [Vestígio(s)] begins with a fragmented story to imagine new forms of neighbourhood. Over the course of the festival, the steel curtain will slowly oxidise, becoming living matter that follows the rhythm of time. In the end, the structure will be dismantled, but two remnants will remain: a shared garden and the traces of rust left on the ground. Signs of an ephemeral process, understandable only to those who experienced it — or to those who later come upon it — as memory inscribed in the place and in the relationships it fostered.

Patricia da Silva (Guimarães, 1987) is an architect graduated from FAUP, with an additional passage by the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, where she has been teaching since 2015. She worked with Valerio Olgiati in Flims, a formative and defining experience in her education. As a lecturer, she has taught at the Kyoto Institute of Technology (2016) and the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (2018), having been invited in 2020 to teach first-year design studio. In 2016, she returned to Portugal and founded her own practice in Lisbon, a city she chose for its sun. Her work unfolds across different scales and geographies, with a particular fascination for ideas that become space: matter and thought shaping the world through architecture.

INSTALLATION TECHNICAL 
CREDITS

ARCHITECTURE
Patricia da Silva

COLLABORATION
José Santos

PRODUCTION AND ASSEMBLY
Artworks

TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Edgar Brito
João dos Santos
Municipality of Braga

GARDENING
Oásis Plantas