Landscape architect Laura Roldão Costa received the Land Award in Italy at the Landscape Festival for her project
The landscape architect Laura Roldão Costa received, in Bergamo, Italy, the International Land Award - nature and artifice from Archiforum and Arketipos, during the Landscape Festival. The "Leça Green Corridor" project was at the origin of this international recognition.
The Land Award aims to reward the projects that have generated a positive contribution to the quality of life of people and the integration between art, architecture, and landscape.
Laura Roldão Costa took the opportunity to "thank the Matosinhos City Hall that trusted in our work, accepting the challenge of triggering a process that, although long, already offers environmental and social compensations".
The "Corredor Verde do Leça" is an environmental and mobility project, with a strong cultural, economic, touristic, and social character, in order to allow the landscape and environmental valorization of the river Leça and its margins, and to contribute to the territorial cohesion, connecting the coast to the interior, through a proper channel destined to the use of soft modes of transport. Besides the requalification and revitalization of the banks of the river Leça and its surroundings, the project includes the construction of a pedestrian and cycling path along its banks, creating a mobility alternative for daily trips, on foot and by bicycle, between residential and business areas located in its surroundings.
Co-financed by FEDER, through the Portugal 2020/Norte 2020 community program, the project encompasses three phases, with a total of 18 km of interventions, with the first phase, between the Moreira and Pedra bridges (including the connection to Picoutos), with a length of 6.9 km, concluded since last July, with an investment of 7.2 million euros, which included the construction of a bicycle and pedestrian pathways, among other improvements, increasing the visibility of the river Leça and its pollution sources, promoting a greater contact with nature and new mobility opportunities along the river.
The second phase is currently underway, which includes the Moreira and Carro bridges, with a length of 6.1 km; and the third phase, between the Carro Bridge and the Port of Leixões/ Foz do Rio Leça, with connections to the center of Matosinhos and Leça da Palmeira, which will have a length of 4.7 km, is currently being studied.
The municipality of Matosinhos believes that the "Leça Green Corridor" is the first step towards the complete depollution of the river course and the landscape enhancement of the river banks, transforming them into a leisure area and returning them to the population's enjoyment.
It should also be noted that this project along the river Leça has the institutional cooperation of all the municipalities through which the river Leça flows, which are members of the Green Corridor Association of the river Leça, namely Matosinhos, Maia, Valongo, and Santo Tirso.
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