Habitar PortugalHP

The town of Montemor-o-Velho lost its connection to its castle when the access road to national road 111 passed through its back gate in the 1970s. The assisted walkway responds to the urgent need to reinvent the town’s urban system. The design is not a new model but a re-working of the existing one with the aid of today’s technologies.
It is like a bypass surgery, a violent intervention resulting from a critical diagnosis, given that the vitality of the town and its centre depends to a large extent on a positive relationship with its castle, and the viability of the castle hillside as a residential area depends on the quality of access.
Three escalators assist walkers in negotiating the 30 metre di erence in height between the foot of the slope and the old walkway around the castle. The route makes use of existing pathways and brings the castle closer to the town centre, which is now in the lower- lying urban area. In addition to linking the main walkway routes with the escalators, the intervention also opens up the possibility of road access to the higher parts of the slope, facilitating its regeneration.
The intervention serves the town residents directly, offering the community the opportunity to rediscover the castle and slope.
But it also serves the castle well, not only by restoring its relationship with the town through what was always its main gate, but also by creating a new experience (of climbing the slope) that vehicle transport cannot offer.