Waterfront New Life
introduction
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text Pedro Ressano Garcia PhD from Lusófona University of Lisbon
Waterfront New Life The second edition of the European Workshop in Urban Design completed the work we started in 2010. The estuary presenting diverse situations motivated us to cover four other locations. Between workshops, during one year period, there was time to present ideas in international conferences and publications, to discuss with local experts and the municipalities. It was useful to organize ideas, test the potential viability of the solutions formulated and give it a time of digestion. When dealing with Urban Design, one year is a very short period for new solutions to be understood, adopted and implemented. As Le Corbusier argued, new
ideas in architecture and urban design take ten years to be communicated and another ten years to be implemented. The four locations were Margueira, Barreiro, Poço do Bispo and Docapesca. The methodology used at the studios was based on the presentation of these four waterfront situations and the organization about the historic and geographic conditions, field trips, presentation of lectures conducted by architects involved with new master plans, and technical staff from the municipalities developing work for each particular location on the Lisbon estuary. The research is made prior
to the workshop, it intends to create a body of knowledge that is free from political pressures, and cross it the projects developed by public or private responsibles. The information collected covers a wide range that is useful for defining particularities of local culture. In the first days each group organize, select and edit the information having in mind that the aim of the workshop is to design solutions, a task that is carried out after two weeks. Municipality representatives and high profile professionals, authors of master plans and projects of architecture of