REFURBISHMENT OF PRAZA DO BARREIRO arises from the intervention strategy to detect and suppress the architectural barriers which currently interrupt circulations. As a next step, a new topography is planned parting from the understanding and unification of the preexisting uneveness through several new circulations understood as a prolongation of the current squares entries, in a clear and perimetral way, liberating and boundaring  the central areas of the squares. These centred spaces, will be directly linked to the new circulations and will remain -in case of the main square- divided naturally in two spaces due to the difference of heigh, and at the same time, due to the necessary connection beween both side passages. Therefore, the decision of taking advantage of the uneveness is taken,  understanding the difference of floor levels as two separated epicenters or "amphitheatres" to become sitting, playing and polyvalent-use areas in general terms.

​

 

Central spaces -in case of the main square- will remain intended segmentally to be used in two ways: as resting, observing and weather refuge areas; as polyvalent and dynamic areas to play and serve as stages in case of punctual public acts. These polyvalent and dynamic areas will take the maximum centrality of each epicentre. These three sort of spaces -circulations, resting areas and "stages"- will be differentiated by its pavements.

 

 

As a last layer of the intervention, the most representative and characteristic elements of the proposal will appear, reaffirming the spatial qualities of each sort of space, responding to the proposed connections and nivelations according to its new functions. That will treat about bioclimatic pergolas, designed in a single construction sysytem and covered in an interspersed way with vegetation and recycled polyarbonate sills. These pergolas will conceptually unify the differentiated central spaces of each plaza (rest and game spaces or "stages"). At the same time, these covering elements will vertically separate the space in order to overcome two handicaps: in one hand, the intimidation and opression sensation produced by the high facades of the perimetral buildings to get a more longitudinal and flat perception and a sense of protection; on the other hand, the sensation of a large void perceptible from upward-level apartment's windows,  would be overcomed because pergola acts as a new floating "green floor", giving the perception of a lower heigh upwards as well as a freshness and residential atmosphere sensation. Furthermore, these pergolas will include in its design several groups of solar panels to cover all the electricity demand for illumination.