The public space between land and sea. Quarteira's case

Abstract

This article is inscribed in the research project “MAR - As Marginais Atlânticas Portuguesas. Leitura interpretativa e Projecto em contexto de Alterações Climáticas. / The Portuguese Atlantic Seashore Streets. Interpretative reading and Design in Climate Change context”, and the embryo project “[ENTRA]MAR. Sea intertwined city. Interpretation and Design of Portuguese Seashore Streets vulnerable to sea level rise” coordinated by Sérgio Barreiros Proença, funded by FCT exploratory projects through CIAUD - Research Center in Architecture, Urbanism and Design at the Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal).

The research presented in this article describes two different architectural design approaches to urban public space between land and sea; case study is the Portuguese coastal city, Quarteira.  On the Quarteira seafront, the fixed linear infrastructure system of seashore streets (east of the city) and a dune park Passeio das Dunas (west of the city) succeed each other, separated by the city port area.

The objective of the research is to define, through comparison, the compositional design principles of the two public spaces.

We observe in Passeio das Dunas project, PROAP's design purpose to recognise the transformative process that the marine environment entails and thus propose in the project a dune landscape in continuous transformation. Rigid infrastructures, such as the seashore street, in fact, become ruins over time.

If in the competition phase the Passeio das Dunas was conceived as non-linear forms and paths related to working with living and evolving ecological systems such as green and blue infrastructure, in the realisation phase the same forms were realised through rigid systems that block the dune.

Methodologically, drawing allows us to decompose the urban space into different layers and isolate the public space, representing the different phases of construction and transformation, and then placing it in relation to the maritime urban landscape. This process of elemental decomposition (Viganò, 1999) is a necessary tool to highlight the material and immaterial characteristics of the space between the land and the sea.

In conclusion, we believe that the study allows for the comparison of different spatial design approaches - at the scale of public space - allowing for an understanding of contemporary design principles and critical issues that can be observed in the spaces at the margins between the city and the sea. Although the Passeio das Dunas was not constructed as designed, we consider that it remains an initial starting point for a long theoretical discussion and one of the possible paths on the future formal definition of the vulnerable public space, between the city and the sea, of the effects of climate change.