Bandas da Ribeira

A place with its own identity, a neighborhood fundamentally linked to the sea, especially since the early 19th century, when the salting industry began to settle on the coast of Bueu. Since the 19th century, it has been characterized as the quintessential fishing district of the coastal part of the Villa de Bueu, opposite Pescadoira where the wealthy or business class settled. Its configuration and urban transformation are mainly linked to the beach and the rivers (the Bispo and its main tributary, the Frade) as references for a diverse economic activity where business and economic activities such as saltworks, sawmills, riverside shipyards, and octopus drying facilities flourished. Its maritime presence is evident with the construction in the mid-20th century of the fishermen's neighborhood or affordable housing, which today dominate the image of Pazos Fontenla and Alexandre Bóveda streets. That mark remains imprinted in the neighborhood to this day as an inseparable part of its identity.

The modern era brought with it actions that threaten to disfigure the character of the neighborhood: the disappearance of marine houses and the emergence of decontextualized typologies, low-quality outer urbanizations, or the presence of cars dominating urban space, not only blur its landscape identity but also pose a detriment to the neighborhood's habitability and health. Similarly, the coastal edge has been transformed to protect against tides and storm surges that flooded the neighborhood without providing a unified response. At the same time, some urban infrastructures such as lighting, sanitation, stormwater collection, and supply need renewal from the perspective of environmental sustainability and their effectiveness as basic services. All these conditions of vulnerability have increased in recent decades due to the growing tourist attraction that needs to be organized and managed to protect the material and immaterial culture of the neighborhood.

In this context, Bandas da Ribeira aims to improve the quality of life for residents and environmental conditions through a project that reinforces the neighborhood's identity and recovers its cultural memory: its spaces. A proposal resolved through its own language that addresses local challenges.

The relationship with the environment begins by dignifying the character of the place through its landscape, its traditions, and its people through the public space project. The project is in the place and originates from the place itself, it is not an external object placed over an existing fabric. Under this premise, Bandas da Ribeira proposes:

-A regeneration of visual permeability, especially of the views towards and from the sea. In this way, the scenic integration of the sea with the population center and its maritime essence is achieved. The gentle shapes that define the paths along the sea open up into long diagonals that, "as if it were a choreography, sway the walker, inviting them to stroll along the coast and venture into the Banda do Río neighborhood."

-An integration of neighborhood-sea/sea-neighborhood that is reinforced by the materiality, the furniture elements, the signage, or the treatment of surfaces and vegetation, resulting in a homogeneous and cohesive image.
The proposal contains a territorial vision that understands its structure, its potentials, and its deficiencies. The recognition of the fundamental elements of the environmental matrix at the territorial scale is key to drafting a master plan intrinsic to the place that efficiently responds to neighborhood and environmental demands.

On the other hand, the historical, environmental, infrastructural needs analysis, accessibility, mobility, and parking problems yield a formal response capable of providing the environmental improvement of the entire neighborhood while simultaneously addressing the issues identified by the residents, through a morphology inspired by the existing soft, stony forms, creating large continuous benches that, at the same time, serve as loungers, intermediate spaces between the sea and various uses... Thus, the phenomenology and the spaces that connect the Neighborhood and the coastline multiply: beach-viewpoint, beach-square, beach-park, beach-promenade, etc. The same language to aesthetically unify the front, the same language that captures nuances determined by the territory.