Appreciation proposal and environmental recovery of Fort São Neutel and its surroundings

Catarina Miranda

The present work arises from the restlessness associated to the urban context of a military structure of the seventeenth century, Fort St. Neutel, in Chaves. Due to the expansion of the city in its surroundings, without a common logic, it has led to the formation of disconnected and poorly consolidated spaces. Which, in addition to its organization, does not value the monument, creates a discontinuity in the territory and calls into question the quality of the urban space.

The organization of this place is thus an opportunity to reflect on how an intervention project can value and consolidate an area of the urban fabric that is found fragmented, presenting a hypothesis of approach to the example of Fort St. Neutel and its surroundings.

It adopts a process of intervention where it is made the recognition of the transforming characteristics of the place, built permanences, natural processes and forms of occupation. Through the unfolding of layers, physical and temporal, we intend to find the reasons that led to the fragmented context and, in a future perspective, introduce a possibility of activating the place.

Taking into account the analysis of the place, it is proposed the valorization and environmental recovery of Fort St. Neutel and its surroundings with the construction of a Park. The project aims to make this area more balanced and create a new dialogue among existing activities in order to unify the place. It also aims to make possible to create new relations with the territory and thus to improve urban quality.