Praça de Lisboa

Porto, Portugal

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Praça de Lisboa

Porto, Portugal

Firm

Balonas & Menano - Architectural and Urban Concept

Type

Commercial › Retail
Landscape + Planning › Public Park

YEAR

2013

The proposed solution is based on the principle that the square/public space should adopt an open shape to the city drawn for pedestrians, losing the interiority and ensuring an appealing relation with their surroundings.
It was proposed to the Praça de Lisboa, in the past referred to as the Mercado do Anjo, a new topography that, by the singular shape driven by the need to create interior spaces with more dignified free heights, relates dynamically with its surroundings. It is both an urban garden and a building with a semi-covered comercial street, inserted on a slope where the three programmatic levels are incorporated: Garden on the top (corresponding with the Cordoaria garden and Praça Gomes Teixeira; commercial street (in the mid-level that connects Lello Bookstore and Clérigos Tower); and an already existent parking lot in the lower level (connecting with the lower streets).
It was necessary to add safety and well-being for those who remain or pass it, ensuring the dynamics of public space and call for its use. In order to restore to the public the space that was derelict, one of the key points of the proposal was to offer a functional natural pathway, without barriers or obstacles and concordant with the surroundings.
The scale and shape of the building seeks to develop a rich dialogue with the surroundings.
The slabs in concrete offer shade or shelter from the rain on both sides of this “new street” near their storefronts.
The elevations silhouette is the result of the roof design and conditioned by the car park level and the slope of the surrounding streets. The facade is composed by a textured prefabricated concrete and white metallic structural elements.
The rooftop is essentially a green roof punctuated by trees. These Olive trees invoke one of the city’s ancient gates formally known by Porta do Olival (Olival Gate).
In sum, we sought an architectural solution that, with full awareness and respect for the importance of the surrounding heritage, seeks to dialogue with it.

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Praça de Lisboa

Porto, Portugal

Praça de Lisboa

Porto, Portugal

Product Spec Sheet

Collaborating Firms

Team