Avenida de Portugal

The Avenida de Portugal is part of the Madrid Rio project. Portugal Ave. is a large highway that is a major east west connection all the way to Portugal. But the section nearest to Madrid was buried. Most of the road was turned into a park with a surface road on either side. A dedicated bike lane was also added and now cyclists can cross the river and enter the large Casa de Campo park directly.

I initially thought I would not like the design of this piece because of the large graphic flower pattern. But on the ground level the 100' wide flowers do not read as precious as I anticipated. The scale makes it more graphic than literal. When the scale gets smaller the flowers are more legible like here in this cherry tree planting. But the Ave is lined with residential buildings that will view the space in plan and experience the patterning more clearly.

The voids in the pattern shaped the custom planters with seat walls. The contoured shape of the seating and smooth concrete was very comfortable. Large cherry trees were planted for a more instant effect. I was there while the trees were in full bloom. There was a slight breeze and petals were raining down. magical. I can only imagine the change for the adjacent residents whose previous view was a noisy polluting expressway!

The paving detailing was beautiful, a reference to the traditional paving techniques of Portugal. I can only imagine that these are hand set. I did not see joints of larger units but I will try to find out. I know in the US the labor for this type of work is too expensive and the skilled labor harder to find.

The raised planters acted as curbs in much of the linear park. This allowed the park and street to be at the same level. In areas with no planters angled granite pieces were used for protection and to delineate the end of the pedestrian zone. I thought this was a subtle technique which made the entire zone feel more pedestrian and caused the few cars in this area to drive more cautiously.