Orto Culturas

MOOV

Cities are dynamic entities where the abandoned territories are mutable, in keeping with economic interests, urban plans, diverse occupations, etc... Urban vegetable gardens are spontaneous appropriations of neglected territories. They are an impulsive way, through which the local inhabitant reverts neglectfulness into something productive. Their development doesn’t obey to any predefined strategy, but rather to scattered tactics, that take advantage from the particularities of the context where they are inserted, to create an immediate answer far from any conventional planification. Such occupancy, although eventually extended for many years, always keeps a transitory quality, and it’s just this character that makes possible their existence, since temporal limitations often permit what would be unconceivable if considered in the long term.

Our proposition recognizes what this kind of territory occupation means to the ecologic structure of the city and also its high value as a temporary exploitation system of the urban voids. That’s why the ORTO CULTURAS project works up this transitory reality, raising its potenciality by adding several elements to support the horticultural activities. The implementation of these elements contributes to define a less precarious identity and to improve the performance of the system, in brief, it contributes for the ecological and social improvement of the territory.

The ORTO CULTURAS TERRITORIES
The oriental zone of the city of Lisbon, it’s an urban zone full of contrasts with big social quarters punctuated by expectant voids and significant spots emptied by the progressive displacement of industries. This fact created the conditions for an unusual concentration of urban vegetable gardens in this part of the city. We propose the organization of an informal net of these already settled places, identifying each of them with a different colour.

The UNITS
The elements introduced in the system adopt, in three different dimensions, the classic shape of the saddle-roof house. This option aims to emphasize the rural/urban dicotomy and the ancestral character of the vegetable garden, while relationship medium between man and nature.

The three different scales of the objects inserted in the landscape reflect different programs. The minor element is a birds nest, the medium one is meant to be a hencoop and the biggest one serves to the arrangement of tools, with an open variant being a meeting-point for the vegetable gardens users. All the elements are dismountable, in harmony with the transitory character of these urban vegetable gardens.

The goal is the possibility of their removal to other places when the natural development of the urban tissue grows to occupy these areas.

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