Green and Blue Infrastructures as A Model of Sustainable Urban Planning—Landscape Design for Praça De Espanha in Lisbon—Portugal

Abstract

The speech about Smart Cities includes a discourse where the sustainability of cities is unavoidable. Blue and green infrastructures (BGI) have a great role in cities sustainability because they offer feasible and valuable economic, social and environmental solutions for urban areas facing the challenges of climate change such as cloudbursts and droughts. BGI connects urban hydrological functions with urban nature, landscape design and planning. Thereby using the landscape systems namely blue (water) and green (vegetation) to protect against flooding and assure soil permeability among others. Within the BGI framework we propose a landscape design to Praça de Espanha in Lisbon. This landscape design is based on landscape systems (water, topography, vegetation, circulation (mobility)) and it is part of a continuous and productive landscape structure promoting the occurrence of ecologic, economic and social processes. The proposed landscape design is in line with the policies and strategies for the ecological and sustainable development strategies that Lisbon has promoted and that it is included in the smart cities principles and orientations. This landscape design promotes social inclusion where human and ecological, physical and functional connectivity are articulated promoting different types of leisure and activities, through urban space polyvalence, multifunctionality and permeability (in all senses). This design proposal combines and includes natural, ecological and heritage values as well as the cultural heritage of the place itself. Always with an ecological purpose we designed with a systemic and interconnected approach: water, topography, circulation (mobility), vegetation (creating spatiality: full/empty, light/shadow, close/open), cultural, aesthetic and poetic values, and community (as a participatory element and fundamental on the design process) promoting various functions (leisure, sports, protection and production) and creating a multifunctional landscape space, that reinforces and becomes part of the city BGI. This multifunctional landscape structure is fundamental for the sustainable development of cities, enabling a real-time response to environmental changes but also to the preservation and valuation of cultural values, heritage and identity, aesthetic concerns and leisure. It also enables partnerships among local government, civil society, communities and private sector.