bright runway

Heritage requalification

path

Vilar Maior Castle (Sabugal)

Located in the ancient Vilar Maior village, founded in defense against Leão, lifted up castle walls since the eleventh century. Its surroundings embraces the highest part of the village, where important archaeological remains dating from the Paleolithic have been found.

This project intends to innovate in the way we intervene in landscapes with strong historical and human component like this, where preservation is the major, but without abdicating a contemporary approach. An arrival path, physically easy, visually appealing, constructively reversible and historically suggestive.

Searched for a solution that would guarantee the goals in regard to: creating a pedestrian path to the castle accessible to all; reversibility of the construction; creating an element that ensured infrastructures distribution; concrete presentation not as harmful to the material heritage; low construction and maintenance cost; no destruction of existing archaeological remains and erosion control caused by motorized traffic.