The Central Axis is the plane’s structuring path. The aim was therefore to optimise its status as a unique public space.
We sought to accentuate the “urban path’s” dimension, of a multimodal character, for circulation and accommodation of people and vehicles, as well as its capacity to organise the surrounding buildings, based on the relationship between public space–buildings–built-up clusters.
We downplayed the traditional prevalence of roadway aspects that limit the public space associated with pedestrians: larger lateral pathways (10 m); a single and extensively organic and pervious central slab (30m); road circulation on two lateral roads with three lanes each; suppression of traditional parking on the public road (compensated with parking silos in the contiguous urban fabric), and the creation of pedestrian crossings that intersect the Axis, integrated into the network of city blocks adjacent to and outside the roadways, so that the blocks’ inner spaces are public spaces that complement the surrounding roads and the Axis itself, thereby providing a new network of pedestrian spaces.
Alta de Lisboa central axis streetscape design
Location
Lisboa
Client
SGAL, Sociedade Gestora do Alto do Lumiar, S.A.
Date
2006 – 2013
Architecture and Urban Design
Manuel Salgado, Tomás Salgado and Pedro Pinto
Site Area
19,4 ha
Cost
14.330.000 €
Photographs
João Morgado
Built
