By Rui Jorge Garcia Ramos and Virgilio Borges Pereira

Social housing has a long tradition in Europe. Since the early 20th century, these often anonymously built and unappreciated structures have arisen all across the suburbs of Europe's major cities. In the multidisciplinary and international research project Mapping Public Housing, the Center for Studies in Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Porto's Faculty of Architecture has been tracing the architectural heritage of social housing. The findings demonstrate that, in many cases, vibrant neighbourhoods and entire city districts have emerged from such social housing programs.