Bruna De Almeida

In an increasingly migratory world, questions of belonging, identity, and cultural continuity grow more urgent. For diasporic communities, architecture is not only a shelter or monument, but an active participant in the preservation and evolution of cultural heritage. This study explores how architecture can function as a living archive within the Portuguese diaspora of Johannesburg South, South Africa. It asks, how can built space sustain, adapt, and reflect diasporic memory and identity? Remembering in diasporic contexts is more than nostalgia, it is an active negotiation between origins and futures, between loss and reinvention. For the Portuguese community in Johannesburg South, shaped by colonial histories, migration, and intergenerational hybridity, remembering is both political and spatial. Here, architecture is positioned not as static form, but as a dynamic cultural vessel, a framework where rituals, stories, and collective practices remain alive. 

This research is structured as a concessive exploration. While acknowledging the challenges of cultural erosion and generational change, it argues that these very tensions create fertile ground for re-imagined cultural spaces. Using a hybrid methodology that blends spatial storytelling, theoretical analysis, ethnographic sensibility, and speculative design, the work proposes both critical insight and spatial strategies. Ultimately, it positions architecture as a participatory archive, one that sustains diasporic memory, fosters cultural continuity, and reimagines how communities remember and reinvent themselves across generations.