Marquês de Pombal

The project had three aims: to build a hierarchy in the space, to strengthen the visual link to the Parque Eduardo VII, and to help drivers find their way.

The wayfinding was solved with colour temperature. The rings of the roundabout are lit at different temperatures, each matching the avenues it leads to: the inner ring, warm, opens onto the warm avenues; the outer ring, cooler, onto the cool ones. The roundabout had just been redrawn in both layout and traffic pattern, and the confusion that followed was slowing everything down. The concept set out to supply that clarity after dark.

At the same time the street lighting columns were repositioned to clear the view of the park and of the columns at its head. The cycle path is marked by points of light converging on the centre of those columns, an imaginary vanishing point.

What stands out in the whole is the statue of the Marquês de Pombal, lit entire and ringed by floodlights washing the pavement, to state its place in the square.