Water as a project material: Designing the Tagus Estuary Riparian Limits

Abstract

Today, especially at a time of mobility restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we recognise the attraction of riverside promenades as well as green areas and paths along drainage corridors. As the water network has become a generator of new urban facades and a trigger of territorial regeneration, it has also come to represent a way towards improving inhabi-tants’ wellbeing and social cohesion. This work analyses 21 realised riverside regeneration projects located in the ‘City of the Tagus Estuary’ – the city set along the Tagus Estuary water system (Lisbon Metropolitan Area, Portugal). The focus is on quality factors and components that work together with the visual stimuli of the green/blue scenes. The work concludes that proximity to water, as a ‘project material’, requires conscious design of the land-water interface and its accessibility, with relevance for the ways of using and contemplating the estuarine landscape.

Keywords: Water landscape, urban green and blue scenes, open public space projects, proximity to water, City of the Tagus Estuary, Lisbon Metropolitan Area.

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1002346