[ RISCO Architects ] Ponta Delgada Seafront and Port

Location
Ponta Delgada, Açores
Client
Administração dos Portos das Ilhas de São Miguel e Santa Maria S.A.
Date
2002 – 2008

Architecture and Urban Design
Manuel Salgado, Marino Fei, Tomás Salgado
and Pedro Pinto
Interior light design
Piero Castiglione
Sculpture / Instalation
Filipe Franco
Site Area
50.153 m2
Build Area
18.000 m2
Cost
50.000.000 €

The intervention has encompassed the city's long, coastal avenue from the São Brás Fort to the São Pedro pools, its main objective being the building of a new passenger boat terminal. As a consequence of the planning options for redevelopment and enlargement of the Ponta Delgada port and surrounding area, a restructuring programme of the port installations was drawn up separating the merchandise transport and industrial fishing zones from recreational areas. New infrastructures include a recreational marina, a new ocean pool, a new boardwalk, a car park, an event pavilion, shops and restaurants.

The newly built landscape contrasts a more complex morphology with the regularization imposed by the Avenida Marginal in the middle of the last century. This sinuosity allows for greater situational variation along the coastline and new relations between the buildings and the sea. The landscape modifications together with the expansion of leisure and commercial activities are expected to constitute a more lively and worldly context for the city's seafront. Contrary to current practice in Portugal, an attempt has been made to show that there is always a margin for "design" in large infrastructure projects.


from  risco