Let the construction begin!

This Friday, Arrebita!Porto reached an important milestone: we officially launched the construction works on site. To mark the occasion, we invited our partners to an event in which they could testify the project progress. We were very proud to have about fifty people gathered in front of No. 42 in Reboleira Street, eager to see the first practical results of all our common efforts.

José Paixão, the mastermind of Arrebita, opened the event with a speech on the project’s mission and challenges. [Read the transcript here] Then, Dr. Luís Jerónimo took the stage to speak on behalf of the Gulbenkian Foundation and praise the determination that made Arrebita go from paper to reality. Finally, Mrs. Guilhermina Rego – a top city council representative – also congratulated all those involved in the project before cutting the ribbon to unveil the banner with our partners logos.

 José Paixão addressing the guests

 Dr. Luís Jerónimo, of Gulbenkian Foundation

José Paixão and Mrs. Guilhermina Rego unveil the banner

With all the formal talk done, Rita Ferreira and Daniel Barbosa – our wonderful consultant engineers – led the guests on a short guided tour inside the building. The feedback was great: everyone is really excited to see further developments.

We then walked to the reception organized by Hotel Intercontinental, one of our logistic partners. The guests mingled together while sipping Port wine and tasting some appetizers.

It was a busy week for Team 7 – unloading materials on Monday, taking an Archicad workshop on Tuesday, starting to prepare the event on Wednesday, attending a presentation by Porto Vivo on Thursday and getting everything ready for the event on Friday morning… ufff! – but, in the end, everything went smoothly.  We built a cool podium, we got do-it-yourself t-shirts with the Arrebita logo and we did not kill anyone while lowering the banner cover. We do look proud of our work, don’t we?

Stick around for more news – we have so much more coming!