OLIVEIRA DE AZEMÉIS URBAN PARK PROJECT
The Urban Park / Environmental Interpretation Center project will provide the city of Oliveira de Azeméis with a central space for public use, with the characteristics of the urban park structured in contemporary molds, where, through the implementation of the best design and project best practices, it will offer a place that promotes the most sustainable and stimulating usage models.
The project, with an area of five hectares, will be located in a central area of the city, in the so-called “old” Quinta dos Borges, and is the authorship of our office: we won the national public tender under anonymity.
THE PROJECT
The intervention in its proposal, imagines the park as a pole of intervention and promotion of environmental resilience in the city of Oliveira de Azeméis, with the objective of improving the health and general well-being of Oliveirenses and visitors, as well as obtaining environmental benefits and economical, trying to preserve the ecosystem already established by the existing vegetation, introducing new specimens that help to consolidate and strengthen the ecological potential of the park. The city will thus have strategic equipment for its development, a high quality recreational and leisure space, designed for the welfare and community.
The proposal foresees the requalification of the existing building in the “old” Quinta dos Borges for restaurant spaces, such as the park’s café / café café terrace, and the provision of areas for the Interpretative Center and Pedagogical Farm, slide and arborism structures, circuits and maintenance sports equipment, rest areas, among many other features. «We are in the presence of a pre-existence that is strongly conditioning the intervention. The evidence of heritage values of the most diverse nature and typology, gives the location support of the intervention, a manifest characteristic of identity and potential, which must be valued and interpreted. The proposal thus guides all of its action – from conception to detail of the drawing -, taking as its motto the sensitive reading of pre-existence, as a “genius loci”. Several themes are identified as guiding the intervention: the humanized landscape and the environmental and natural heritage. », Says the architect responsible for the project, José António Lopes, adressing that the ambition is« a solution that constitutes a comprehensive and varied response to the expectations of those who seek this unique Urban Park, but also, the affirmation of an assumed posture of conscience and good -environmental practice by the project and the municipality of Oliveira de Azeméis.».
«THE INTERVENTION IS IN ABSOLUTE RESPECT FOR THE CONSTRUCTIVE AND ARCHITECTURAL / DISCIPLINARY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BUILDING» – José António Lopes
In all of its projects, the firm ad quadratum arquitectos are committed to valuing the pre-existing. In the Urban Park / Environmental Interpretation Center project, the architect José António Lopes guarantees that it will be mandatory to intervene, either in pre-existing structures or in new constructions to be implemented, which ensure the most adequate compatibility of the proposed valence with the “container” ”Built (pre-existing) that will receive it. All spaces in this project result in spaces committed to the necessary versatility of the uses (and audiences) pointed out and consider a value of versatility that goes beyond the immediate proposal. «There was, however, a self-imposed discipline and conditioning to seek , due to the suitability of the use and the physical rehabilitation measures provided for, the most careful and cautious way of preserving the architectural and “urbanistic” heritage in presence, even if not classified (“classification procedure” which, for our purposes, is irrelevant). », Highlights José António Lopes.
«REHABILITATING, REQUALIFYING, CONSERVING AND MAINTAINING THIS WILL BE THE GUIDELINES OF A SUSTAINABLE PLACE.» – José António Lopes
The adoption of methodologies for safeguarding heritage and architectural integration are necessarily combined with innovative processes and the search for the best solutions for energy efficiency and environmental neutrality. In the intervention in the park space, these principles of environmental sustainability take on special prominence, considering that the intervention will be carried out directly in complex ecosystems, which articulate protected flora and fragile hydraulic systems. «Thus, the commitment is evident: to articulate the public, varied and inclusive use and enjoyment of the various equipment and facilities proposed, adopting the approach of conservation and enhancement of the natural heritage and minimizing the negative impacts that human activity may have on the environment. We believe that a careful and environmentally conscious management of the natural assets of this park will translate into even less financial effort associated with maintenance costs in the face of more inadequate intervention models and possibly inheritors of “preconceptions”, not awakening the understanding of our realities intervention site. », Emphasize the architect.
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