The term “gentrification” indicates a social and urban process that transforms entire popular urban areas, generally by private investments, into presumed valuable ones. The consequence is the expulsion of locals towards marginal and more accessible areas and consequently the loss of spontaneity through more standardized citie’s spaces. The great visibility has been given to Lisbon by medias and publicity, rising the city from the crisis, is a crucial aspect of this ongoing process: a significant number of turists, foreigner students and investors is totally reshaping Lisbon’s spaces.
Thus, this thesis reflects on the action of powers and the lively reaffirmation of freedom through the space, particularly the urban ones.
Accordingly, the focus is on that spaces behind the scene, where, far from visibility, life flows free from any definition and shapes its own spaces, to protect and celebrate them. The inside of the quarters are therefore taken into account, particularly along Avenida "Almirante Reis", a highly popular and multicultural area where gentrification is on stage. Here, "Jardim Caracol da Penha" is particularly interesting for its absolute conditions: its strong rectangular shape is unaccesible and barely visible. Thus, it seems to be a crop in the city, existing just in maps.
The project’s attitude is to second these conditions, following the idea that are precisely these conditions ensuring the place specificity . The existing fence, archetype of protection, is mantained, sublined and secondly revert into an infrastructure that opens three new paths at three different hights to better connect the fluxes around the quarter. The inner life is let grown free in an enclosed spontaneous garden as a secret spot of wild nature. In the lower part, maintaining the invisibility, a public urban stage acts as the entrance to the park. Inspired to the freedom of being a particular of Pina Bausch's art, it is meant to force an action on the space. Indeed, a provocative grid, archetype of homogenization in space, is suspended on air, as an uncomplete architecture that need the user’s action to be created and completed.
The Board:
