Coimbra competition published
The magazine + Arquitectura published our competition entry for Ferreira Borges and Visconde da Luz streets, in Coimbra, Portugal.
In 2005, the City Hall of Coimbra promoted a competition to design a roof structure for the two main commercial streets in downtown. The structure was supposed to give weather protection, better shopping conditions, increasing business and urban life.
The University was settled in Coimbra’s uptown seven centuries ago. During Renaissance, the kingdom developed plans for a new campus downtown, further west. All buildings were built, but the University never moved there.
Both places are now candidates to Unesco World Heritage sites, and the two commercial streets lie exactly in the connection between them. According to this, and to dozens of buildings classified as National Monuments in the area, our main concern was to create no interferences with the uptown skyline, and to minimize the impact with the historical sites nearby.
The decision to create an underground gallery was taken to comply with all heritage issues and commercial functions. Until the beginning of the 20th century the downtown area was cyclically affected by the river Mondego floods. Nearby roads and squares have their levels fixed according to the floods they were exposed to. Considering that the two main streets were higher than the surrounding squares, it seemed logic to connect them underground, creating a new, full functioning, commercial gallery.
For more, please see the website for project “051 Ferreira Borges”.
Tags: competition, press
