LOUSÃ. THREE ROUNDABOUTS

Traffic circles are probably the most debated urban elements. Unlike squares or streets, they rarely give rise to such heated discussions in urban interventions. Since an urban project is a significant responsibility, due to its influence on people's lives and the memory of places, the responsibility is even greater when it comes to not one, but several traffic circles.

Created to organize traffic, many of the 5,000 or so existing traffic circles are home to symbolic sculptures, sometimes enigmatic to non-locals. Others use simple, easily identifiable shapes, but are often devoid of meaningful content.

As Álvaro Domingues says, the contemporary urban landscape lives between excess speed for those who live there and slowness for those who pass through it - a tension that can't be solved simply with crosswalks, traffic lights or traffic circles.

The set of three traffic circles at the main entrance to Lousã, via Estrada da Beira and the connection between Rua de Coimbra and the Variante, is intended as a gesture of welcome to those arriving. It is proposed to build parallel schist walls on the central platforms, about 1.5 meters high and spaced at various intervals, reinforcing the horizontality of the whole.

At the first traffic circle, the walls will maintain the natural color of the schist, with white gravel flooring and white-flowered heather (blooming in May), in a neutral composition of black and white. At the next two traffic circles, the walls will maintain their north-south orientation, acting as a spatial reference.

To reinforce the identity character, an anamorphosis of the word “LOUSÔ will be drawn along the walls, which will only be legible from a specific point when passing through the traffic circle.