A NEW GREEN SPACE IS BORN IN THE HEART OF PORTO: QUINTA DE LAMAS PARK

With the purpose of fostering the wellbeing of the academic community and the general public the University of Porto (U.Porto) took on the challenge to create an urban park in the Asprela pole, between the Faculty of Engineering (FEUP) and the Faculty of Economy (FEP).

The opening ceremony of new Urban Park of Quinta de Lamas took place on July 2, 2015, in the presence of the Rector of the University of Porto, Sebastião Feyo de Azevedo, the Mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira, and the President of the Bank Santander Totta, António Vieira Monteiro.

Coordinated by landscape architect Paulo Farinha Marques, leader of the Landscape Planning, Design and Management group at CIBIO-InBIO and Professor at the Faculty of Sciences, U.Porto, the urban requalification project of Quinta de Lamas Park converted a somewhat abandoned space located between these two faculties into a top-quality recreational outdoor setting with over 18 000 square meters of turf ground harbouring more than 700 trees and bushes. Its main features are arguably: i) the large gritted avenue sided by two parallel rows of young trees, which links, both visually and physically, FEUP and FEP; ii) the massive turf clearing surrounded by a edge of trees; and the requalification of Ribeira da Asprela, a water course which used to be channelled and that has been uncovered, now running on open air, with its bed and banks naturalized.

This park, purposely designed to allow the development of outdoor leisure and sports activities, meets U.Porto’s efforts to promote the health and wellbeing of the citizens of Porto, as well as to improve the environmental quality of the Asprela University Campus.

But the project is yet to be concluded - a next stage in the requalification of the green area of Asprela is being thought of, involving the expansion of Quinta de Lamas Park to an adjoining field, between the streets Roberto Frias and Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida. The first stone in this process was already casted by the signing of a collaboration protocol between several prominent initiations: U.Porto, the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Porto City Hall, Águas do Porto, and Porto Lazer.