JOÃO PAULO LOUREIRO

The city of Matosinnhos, since its foundation has a strong connection to the sea, as so as in terms of its port activity, and in activities related to the fishing sector. In the last decades, a strong gastronomic tradition has been developed, namely in the confection of dishes with predominance of the grilled fish. The strenght of the restaurant activity led to a certain complacency from the city administration in the occupation of the street by the restaurants owners, who were gradually taking the walks alongside their restaurants with highly polluting grills and improvised terraces. Gradually transformed into more or less closed spaces, in a disorderly way, with poor quality constructions.

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Given the existing problem, the city Hall and the Matosinhos Restaurant Association, together asked us to find a solution that ordered the occupation of the public space throught new terraces built from the scratch with a smoke treatment and filtering system wich are released into the atmosphere by the daily use of the grills.

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The functional and constructive assembly was considered between the new spaces for esplanades and an autonomous work zone for the integration of a set of technical equipment that will ensure the treatment and filtration of the smokes and odors released during the confection of grilled fish. The proposed solution had as its starting point the metric survey of the spaces already occupied, resulting in a modular and spatial synthesis that establishes a direct relation with the dimension of the cadastral front of each building and its restaurant. Modules of 5, 7 and 9m by 3.1m with integrated grill and 4, 6 and 8m without grill, distibuted linearly along the street.

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