A heritage site organised around a baroque manor house built in the mid-18th century, Casa de Mateus has always been a productive farm. Over the centuries, this farm was permanently reinvented according to the needs, techniques and tools that each generation had at its disposal.

Taking as a given the principle that our relationship with the planet needs urgent renewal, the School of Transitions sets out to study biodiversity and ecological interactions in a multidisciplinary way, combining a symbiotic relationship with the environment and respect for natural cycles with the use of advanced digital techniques and tools, from digital fabrication to robotics or artificial intelligence, and adds a philosophical, social and political dimension.

In 2022, the Foundation held three editions of the Mateus Labs | Transitions programme, seeking to establish concrete bases for multidisciplinary work, sow the seeds of the Agro-Bio-FabLab to be set up at the Foundation and formulate a long-term action programme.

Throughout 2023, the residency of the Belgian artist AnneMarie Maes and the installation of her Laboratory of Form and Matter will add a look and a set of practices that take biodiversity as matter and invent new ways for it to be seen by wider audiences.

In the autumn, provided its application to the BPI-La Caixa Foundation's Promove programme is approved, the School of Transitions will begin the Library of Visible and Invisible Values project, a two-year programme of practical workshops involving the community, based on the use of open sources and DIY techniques, boosting knowledge transfer and replicability.