The ADAPT Lab aims at affirmation of projectual processes as the main field of research in the areas of architecture, urbanism and drawing. According to dialectical evolution, it converges and connects the theoretical research, the experimental practice and practical applicability of the design, production and reception of artefacts.

The ADAPT Lab combines various disciplinary and cross-disciplinary areas of knowledge which as theoretical foundations inform praxis and intervention in the real environment. Similarly, in university education, teaching and projects are approached as inseparable; they are both part of a process of interaction in the production and dialectical evolution of theoretical and practical knowledge. In the words of Otl Aicher: “our problem is not the abstract and conceptual truth but the exact and the precise, the state of things correctly produced, the vital space constructed. We must move on from thinking to doing, and in doing learn again to think” (“Analogous and Digital”).

The ADAPT Lab was set up in the areas of the architectural project, urban design, territorial planning and drawing in order to encourage experimental research within various cultural frameworks respecting the technological components. Its mission is to find new architectural and urban solutions (in terms of exploring “forms of artistic expression”) linked with “forms of a technological content” related to bioclimatic, construction and structural solutions associated with new ways of living.

The ADAPT Lab addresses issues such as: the sustainable resolution of socio-urban issues in Portugal and in third-world developing countries; participation in the renovation of historical centres, preservation of the landscape and restoration of historical buildings; the production of new materials and new technologies, and the re-thinking of old materials and technologies, and recycling applied to industry and construction; studying new typologies, a-typologies and new ways of living; the implementation of sustainability solutions in terms of construction, the bioclimate and energy (from the use of passive solutions to the application of active solar and wind energy systems and of intelligent [robotic and domotic] systems).

The various research areas are based on the creation of virtual computer-generated (2D, 3D and animation) experimental models and on three-dimensional models (mock-ups and prototypes). The ADAPT Lab comprises the definition of strategic plans, the production of programmes, the design of preliminary studies and the production of the General Project and its coordination with other technical specialities, as well as technical assistance with projects. Field research into the analysis and reception of projects in terms of post-occupation studies and criticism closes and completes the cycle between production and reception. Research Projects and Provision of Services: The Laboratory integrates all the individual and collective research of its members, Research and Development Projects, postdoctoral research, doctoral and master’s degree programmes and theses and pedagogical aptitude tests. It also arranges research and professional training placements in the project that are open for degree students, master’s degree, doctorate and recently graduated post-doc students and professional trainees. With regard to research applied to the provision of services, the only projects admitted are those that clearly involve research of a scientific character in the areas of architecture, urbanism, restoration and design – i.e. those that may help to advance the project’s expertise in these areas and to produce innovative works that go beyond the scope of merely providing a commercial service.