LUANDA BAY

Luanda's waterfront, Angola 2012

Luanda’s bay, located in the Angolan capital, is the country’s most emblematic landscape. Throughout the 27 years of civil war, public space had been given little attention both from the public, the private and civil community. With peace coming back to the country in 2002, public space all over the country was in clear need of reconstruction and renovation.

The project “Baía de Luanda”, through the construction of landfills and the installation of a new network of infrastructures, aimed to: increase the capacity of the road network and the parking availability; environmental recovery of the bay; upgrading of the sewerage; wastewater and stormwater systems and the requalification the public space and enlarge the area dedicated to leisure, endowing it with equipment and green spaces.

For such, it was proposed a linear park with 3.1Km along the bay, between the new coastal road and the sea, consisting of landscaped areas intersected by small rest areas, a promenade, smooth mobility paths with a bicycle line and small sport facilities.

Throughout the linear park there are kiosks and terraces, sanitary facilities, other support structures and small playgrounds.
In the major squares of the coastal road (Largo 17 de Setembro e Praça Amizade Angola-Cuba) there will exist kiosks, terraces and other areas that will allow the existence of fairs and outdoor markets, being all prepared with shadow areas and benches.

Because of its important role in the life of Luanda’s population, it was assigned to this project the Honour Award 2013 - Excellence on the Waterfront Awards by The Waterfront Centre, WA, USA as well as the National Landscape Architecture Award 2013 from Portugal by “Jornal Arquitecturas”, and LandPlan together with COSTALOPES were selected for the exhibition “100 Architects of the Year 2015”, organised by the Korean Institute of Architects (KIA) with the support of the International Union of Architects (UIA).