CIVIC GARDEN 1.0
The festival A Porta is an urban event that engages the public in rediscovering the city of Leiria through multiple realities. Our intervention regarded a small modern square in the city’s historic centre. This modern square, despite its good intentions, didn’t manage to activate public life in its urban surroundings.
Our intervention started from the desire to make the square come alive. The aim was to create an inviting space that allowed appropriation, surprise and contemplation.
Above the square and between its two framing modern buildings we stretched a mantle of white plastic fibers that descended down one of the building’s facades to hug its only column.
The facade of the other building confronting the square, covered in mirrored glass, duplicated the length and movement of the fiber mantle. The wind and light created with it a liquid and inconstant topography.
While this “ceiling” gave the square a new character beneath the stone floor was covered in green stripes of grass and several different plants, borrowed from a local greenhouse. This garden, working as an auditorium, attained an uncanny natural environment.
Project type: Installation/Communal cultural space/Garden
Site: Centro Cívico, Leiria
Date: June, 2018
Duration: 2 weeks
Promotor: Festival A Porta
Design/Construction: Colectivo Til
Photography: Colectivo Til, Sal Nunkachov
Collaborations: Gui Garrido, Carlos Pena, Francisco Silva