Quantas circunvalações existem na circunvalação?

Abstract

This piece intends to portrait a transformation moment in the urban area of Oporto, its county "boundaries" and the connection it has with the expansion of the metropolitan area and, thereafter, the way we structure that place/course in the dialectic between its function and the development of the urban structure. I intend to build a critical point of view of nowadays, considering some forms of intervention through cooperation and planning between municipalities. In its essence, it's about an evaluation of the urban conventions of several parishes in a common area/boundary - sometimes, under the strategic coordination of the "Area Metropolitana do Porto" -, the "Estrada da Circunvalação", under several points of view, however different, but all legitimate and coherent in their context. The "Circunvalação" is recognized by the different fronts that it's made of like a controversial "object", being targeted with discussions accompanied by serious thinking and continuous evaluation. The relevant factors that are pointed out are maintenance and the process of change in this road, in search of its identity in the urban ensemble, either in its totality or, in an opposite and specific way, in individual sectors. This work intends to evaluate that, even as a contested object, this road has been the target of advancing urban and architectonical intervention, with the goal of enhancing its functionality, the morphology of the spaces, buildings and urban centers. In order to collect the key points relating the topic under study, let's focus on the cases where there was a more exhaustive and debated study, but also with more experimentation. Thus, some of them, already the result of urban rehabilitation and guarantee of common interests, are accompanied, on their analysis, by sensitivity to all these influences. The final outcome of this work comes across the purpose of the current urban image of "Circunvalação", for the most relevant cases in its characterization, its diversities and contradictions were isolated, making the comparison between the identified problems and providing a different perspective as to how it should be represented.