LISBON GREEN CORRIDOR

Location: Lisbon (Portugal)
Architects: Municipality of Lisbon
Year: since 2012

Project description

Over many decades, the city of Lisbon has faced agressive urban development in its peripheral neighborhoods, coupled with depopulation in the historical centre due to a combination of abandoned and aging buildings, aging population, lack of infrastructures and general deterioration of the quality of life.

To tackle these challenges and increase the city’s resilience to climate change, the city of Lisbon has taken a series of measures in the framework of a Master Development Plan and a Biodiversity Action Plan, which have resulted in the implementation of new green infrastructures and nature-based solutions.

Creating new green spaces and    connecting them through green corridors has been one of the priorities of the municipality. Between 2009 and 2017, about 190 ha of new green areas were created, spread over a total of 6 green corridors. The general plan of the Green Corridor was established decades ago by Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, a Portuguese landscape architect who also designed two important parks.

The Main Green Corridor, a 2.3 km long green corridor connecting the Monsanto Forest Park to the city centre through Eduardo VII Park, is considered as the city’s largest green infrastructure.

Creating these green areas and green connections has a cooling effect that counteracts the ‘urban heat island’ effect typical of southern European cities. Studies showed that even small green areas, such as trees along the streets, contribute to significantly mitigating the ‘heat island’ effect.

The project featured on these pages is a segment of the Main Green Corridor aiming to transform lands of the former Quinta José Pinto area (approximately 49 000 m2) into an urban park, in order to ensure the continuity of the green corridor between the Gardens of Campolide and the Forest Park of Monsanto. The new park consists of leisure places for children and agricultural production areas. The vegetation is made up of species adapted to the Mediterranean climate and the demanding urban conditions. Their location was determined by functional objectives, such as the creation of shade or the safeguarding of areas with unobscured views.

The new area is crossed by a pedestrian/cycle path