EXTENDED ABSTRACT Arquitetura
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
EXTENDED ABSTRACT URBAN DESIGN PROJECT IN LISBON’S NORTH WEST TERRITORY BENFICA’S STADIUM / COLOMBO INFRASTRUCTURE AND PUBLIC SPACE João Paulo Costa Abreu Pereira Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Arquitetura Júri Presidente: Professor Pedro Filipe Pinheiro de Serpa Brandão Orientador: Professor Carlos Moniz de Almada Azenha Pereira da Cruz Vogal: Professor Nuno José Ribeiro Lourenço Fonseca Outubro 2012 INTRODUCTION This report focuses on the role of road infrastructures, developing an analysis around them and relating them to the development of Lisbon’s North West territory. The work aims to highlight the importance of road infrastructure in the urban environment and to show that the design of road network is also a way to explore new solutions of Urban Design. Urban mobility occupies nowadays one of the most significant aspects of the contemporary city life, due to the number of people traveling each day on different directions, but also, by the impact generated by its various structures. These infrastructures are systems of an enormous complexity, yet they leave a side some aspects that have to do with the conception of a city, such as the design of public space, the consolidation of the urban grid, the relationship between urban tissues and landscape design. The study area is located in Lisbon’s north-west territory, bordering the municipalities of Amadora and Odivelas. Within the municipality of Lisbon, it covers the areas of Benfica, S. Domingos de Benfica and Carnide. Over the past twenty years, this area has been asserting itself as a new center within the city of Lisbon, providing and attracting both public and private services. The consolidation of this urban polo has mostly to do with its location, situated near the Municipalities boundary, between the city center and the suburbs. The infrastructure development, mainly roads and speedways, but as well as equipment, made this a prominent place not only within the city, but also at the regional scale. This work is developed in four main parts: The chapter A infraestruturação e desenvolvimento do território, presents the strategies of urban development that took part in the study are, during the past decades, especially during the second half of the twentieth century. Análise Física do Território characterizes the physical environment of the study area and, in greater detail, the project area. Casos de Estudo, presents four examples on the design of infrastructures that served as a reference to the proposal. The final chapter Proposta de Intervenção describes and justifies the urban design options. KEY WORDS: INFRASTRUCUTRES | ROAD NETWORK | PUBLIC SPACE | BENFICA’S STADIUM | COLOMBO THE INFRASTRUCUTRE NETWORK AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT The understanding of the urban evolution from the late fifties and early sixties of the twentieth century is important to understand the process of formation and expansion of the contemporary city, and the causes that lie behind the creation of new road infrastructure. The sixties opened a period of fast and intense urbanization of the territory, through the installation of new services and industries in Lisbon’s Metropolitan Area. The upcoming labor force, for the new industries and services, gave rise to the increase of new urban areas in Lisbon, such as in Benfica and S. Domingos de Benfica. With the entry of Portugal into the European Economic Community, the economy associated with the housing market, services and industrial production, grew. The funds that were before invested in agriculture are now put elsewhere in the economy, particularly in the secondary and tertiary sector. This leads to an increase in population in cities and suburban crowns, creating an unequal balance in these territories. It is in this context of regional development, that Lisbon’s suburban areas grew, with operations of urbanization promoted by privates in Benfica, which led to the development of a spontaneous and disarticulated urban grid. With the increasing distance between the workplace and living places, soon it was necessary to establish new connections through the creation of new speedways within the urban environment. The infrastructure and mobility technologies occupy now a prominent place in the territory, they are, according to Alvaro Domingues in Cidade e Democracia: 30 anos de transformação urbana em Portugal, the main element of rupture with the logic of growth and formation of the city. This new mobility system plays a crucial role in the city's urban form. We come to inhabit the structures on which we move at an increasing speed, dominating farther territories. It is the suburban phenomenon, or in other words, Sprawl. Mobility has become an inevitable issue nowadays. According to the French sociologist François Ascher, in Novos Compromissos Urbanos, physical accessibility and the possibility of meeting became the greatest capital of urban places. From this point of view, these infrastructures play a major role as part of urban design. The city center was the most relevant urban place, but, the emergence of new centralities and the creation of new highways, thru a vast territory, gave rise to a new city, polycentric and multifunctional. There are not one, but several centralities, increasingly associated with the choices that result from the creation of large public, and private facilities. These new infrastructures, as well as large equipments, are the main references in the city’s urban design. The study area is situated within the limits of Lisbon’s municipality. It is bounded by major traffic routes. In the north-west part it is bordered by CRIL, in the South by radial de Benfica, in the East by Eixo N/S. There are also two major roads crossing it, Segunda Circular and avenida Lusíada. TERRITORIAL ANALYSIS The study area is situated mostly in an area with little steep topographic variation, where the topographic events that are the most notable are: the hill where lies the Colégio Militar, the park Bensaúde, Alto dos Moinhos and Quinta da Granja park. It is well perceived the stamp that the urbanization of the territory prints on the ground, through the making of an artificial topography. It can be particularly noticed the cut produced by the design of major urban corridors, including the Segunda Circular and avenida Lusíada, but also, the changes produced by large equipment, namely Colombo, the Hospital da Luz, Benfica’s Stadium and also the Metro facilities. Concerning the soil characteristics, it is noticed the alluvial soils along the water lines, but predominantly, the clay soil types, which feature low permeability to water. Sandy soils, in Quinta da Granja and Bensaúde park, are also one of the reasons for medium high permeability levels. The study area is marked by a large amount of water lines that have their origin in the more rugged slopes to the north, and south slopes of the Monsanto Forest Park, which together make up the Municipal largest river basin, the Alcântara’s basin. In practice, this means that the path of rainwater upstream toward the river will have to necessarily go through here before reaching the valley of Alcântara. Hence, the relationship between the urban systems and the water lines, as well as humid system is relatively disjointed i.e. there is no clear strategy to protect this urban ecological system. To the west and north, the extensive occupation of buildings and transport infrastructure along the main water basin, creates an impervious layer that reduces soil capacity of holding rainwater, therefore, contributing to the overload of the main drainage system. Regarding the road network, it is drawn concerning mainly, the high speed access, holding a design which does not seem to be only due to the adjustment to the topography and slope, but moreover to the earlier soil order, in small farming parcels, since this division of property remains in the design of the urban structure. An urban development mainly marked by the parasitic relationship of new real estate promotions, relatively to the new transport infrastructure network. CASE STUDIES A SEGUNDA CIRCULAR Segunda Circular was originally conceived in 1947 by De Groer, when the major infrastructure systems where thought together: "airport, , port, big axes, urban neighborhoods, hospitals, universities» "In the beginning there was six lanes and gardens around. After that, the town grew, stole space to its gardens and settled almost on top of it. " Initially built predominantly on rural fields, Segunda Circular held various processes of urbanization in its surroundings, alongside with a growing demand for individual transport and housing demand, served by a good transportation network. This speedway has enabled the creation of a new peripheral corridor, connecting the city center with its regional environment, by linking to the A1 highway, towards north, and to IC-19, towards West, in the direction of Sintra and Cascais. It also enabled the growth of several urban poles around Lisbon, namely, Cacém, Queluz, Sintra and Amadora EIXO NORTE/SUL Eixo Norte/Sul is a motorway route, for fast transportation within the city, resembling a highway. The ambivalence of its status is due to, on one hand, to its integration in urban areas, on the other, to the type of track profile, similar to a high speed track. It was first conceived in 1966, with a track that stretched out over 14Km, from the Aqueduto das Águas Livres, until Sacavém, connecting the Ponte 25 de April to that location. However, because it didn’t had such a strong meaning back then, that would enable its investment, and due to the lack of funds from Lisbon’s Municipality, the project was not sent forward. Only later, in 1989, when Krus Abecassis was Presidente of the Municipality, the project was recovered. The will was to implement it into a wider strategy, whose main ambition was to create a road network connecting Portugal to Spain and, to the rest of Europe.