The requalification of the João Frederico Ludovice Garden and the Benfica Market was one of the projects planned under the municipal program A Square in Every Neighborhood and will go ahead in the first half of 2022, together with the renovation of the Market building. The project was designed by the architecture collective Eightwho won the public tender. The total investment is around seven million euros.
The Benfica Market building will be rehabilitated, modernized and expanded, there will be a reorganization of the commercial spaces, and it will become part of the levante market, "which will clear the south face of the Benfica Market, creating on the other hand a theme and a vocation for the inner space of the block, activating its public use"says the descriptive memoir of Oitoo, to which Lisboa Para Pessoas had access.
Oitoo proposes a better articulation of the Market with the surrounding public space, in a "unification of the surrounding spaces into a new continuous whole". The pedestrian area in front of the building will extend to the João Frederico Ludovice Garden, also known as the Market Garden. "The Market Garden will thus become a de facto market, seeking urban design solutions that enhance the pedestrian articulation between it and the Market".The project's descriptive memory reads. "The proposed arborization constitutes a visual fusion between the Garden and the surrounding Benfica Market area."
The architectural collective designed the existing tar road in front of the market as a cobblestone street, indicating that pedestrians will have priority even though it can still be used by vehicles. The project also foresees exclusive parking for merchants, loading and unloading areas, and also the integration with a new municipal parking lot that the City Hall and the Benfica Parish Council will build on an unused lot next to the Market.
"The proposal seeks an urban solution capable of claiming for the orbit of the Benfica Market a new recognizable civic space, accessible, with a strongly pedestrian vocation, capable of integrating in a shared way the needs of crossing, loading and unloading and parking necessary for the operation of the Market, without subordinating the comfort of the public space and soft modes of mobility."
In the project, the Benfica Market will be able to go out into the street and the street will be able to enter the market. The new design of the storefronts and stores increases the glazed and transparent surface, benefiting a frank relationship between the interior and the exterior. There is also a concern with car parking but also with soft modes of accessibility and there will be further improvements at the level of reduced mobility. An exterior kiosk with an esplanade is also planned.
The new Benfica Market may establish a new meeting point in the parish, imprinting a new social dynamic in the surrounding area and in the João Frederico Ludovice Garden. Construction should start in the first half of 2022.
