The aim of ‘A Vila da Mañá’ is to change the model of town or city, we believe that another one can be possible. This is achieved through the protagonist participation of local children and adolescents who, by working with fundamental concepts through tactical urban planning actions, become active citizens capable of transforming their spaces.

In this case, the village is worked on, like its habitat, its game board to be discovered. Understanding its structure, conformation, morphology, its voids and its fillings, its history, its traditions, and its symbolic and immaterial issues is essential to be able to reflect on how they move from one site to another, the routes, the points important where the lives of the girls, boys and teenagers of the community develop

“We look upon the geometric point as the ultimate and most singular union of silence and speech. The point is also, on the outside, simply the practical, utilitarian element that we have known since childhood. The outer sign becomes customary and darkens the inner sound of the symbol. […] The sound of everyday silence is, to the point, so shrill, that it imposes itself on all its other properties.”

Kandinsky

‘A Vila do Mañá’ emerges from the right to the city, as defended by Henri Lefebvre, so that the people who live in it have the right to enjoy it, to transform it and to reflect their way of understanding life in the community. From this point of view, how can we not include the right of children and adolescents to their city? For this reason, public space is considered a common space for learning and collective construction in which children and adolescents must also have a place.

‘A Vila do Maña’ works with three-dimensional elements, based on Froebel’s “third gift”.
In architecture we have Froebel as a reference, through Frank Lloyd Wrigth who was educated with this method. It is a system based on the creativity and intuition of the child through direct experience, play and nature. It creates a pedagogical resource based on ‘gifts’ and ‘occupations’. The ‘gifts’ are pedagogical materials that do not change, but are transformed; the ‘occupations’ are activities in which children play by transforming the objects they manipulate. The ‘gifts’ are precursors of today’s building blocks.