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Food has always been an urban issue. The role of cities in building more sustainable food systems is already recognized and related to other urban domains, such as transport, health, land use planning for agriculture and multifunctional areas, community development, employment generation and waste management. The implications of these on urban planning and practice are however less evident. A proper spatialization of the food system and of its metabolic flows is missing, inhibiting their necessary readings for urban design. This paper addresses this gap. After introducing the concept of food system and discussing its spatial components – production, transformation, distribution, commercialization/consumption and waste management – we expose how a set of food-related activities and initiatives are shaping the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. The socio-ecological metabolic flows established by these operations on the ground and their sustainability impacts are established, based on the analysis of five municipalities: Lisbon, Oeiras, Alcochete, Palmela and Montijo. The results reveal how food is already an opportunity for the creation of jobs, healthy food markets and the promotion of land productivity, in particular on a micro scale. The paper recognizes the importance of localized food systems and their particular metabolic flows, capable of boosting opportunities to overcome physical and social obstacles and to increase the possibilities for urban planning to target the urban food system on a wider scale. Finally, it concludes that the overall food system of a metropolitan area is more than the sum of the several food systems operating in that same region.

This paper discusses the existing urban-rural dichotomy in Portuguese urban planning, assuming its importance on food-provision, a basic human need. Our analysis stems from an historical overview at two scales, regional and municipal, within the Lisbon Region. Specifically, we identify key changes between two time-periods : the mid-twentieth century, when design-based planning was established in Portugal for larger settlements, and nowadays, when it covers the totality of the national territory, based on land-use. We review these strategies, assessing what approaches would best encompass a sustainable transition of the food system.We start with the scheme of regional radial axis by architect Étienne de Gröer in contrast with the 2002 Lisbon Regional Plan. We furthermore expose two urbanization plans from 1940s : that of Vila Franca de Xira (1946) by Miguel Jacobetty and Faria da Costa and that of Palmela (1948) by João António Aguiar. Such plans, highly representative of the planning practices of that era, are then compared with their contemporary counterparts and subsequently with samples of their physical impacts on the ground, based on a morphological analysis of settlements and productive spaces in urban and rural contexts.Finally, we identify key changes for better use of productive soils within the Lisbon Region, considering challenges posed by international and national agendas.

A ocasião do recente desaparecimento do arquitecto Raul Ceregeiro motivou a preparação deste pequeno dossier, que presta homenagem ao Arquitecto e às marcas que deixou no território da região de Lisboa. Em 2023, um convite da organização da exposição “Habitação em Lisboa da Monarquia à Democracia”, feito a dois dos editores deste dossier, permitiu um contacto com o arquitecto. Disso resultou uma entrevista de preparação para uma mesa-redonda com o título “O Gabinete Técnico da Habitação: testemunhos e lições para o presente”, onde participariam ainda os arquitectos Francisco Silva Dias, Bartolomeu Costa Cabral e Fernando Gonçalves. Esta entrevista, que aqui se publica pela primeira vez, embora focada no âmbito do GTH, permitiu destacar outros momentos do percurso profissional de Raul Ceregeiro, e reflectir ainda sobre como o trabalho de arquitectura mudou nas últimas décadas em Portugal e de qual pode ser o seu sentido hoje. Além desta entrevista, a homenagem conta com quatro testemunhos, uma carta e um ensaio fotográfico.

This paper focuses on challenge, quite typical of developing or industrializing regions, of converting a former rural settlement into a town. We analyse the urban process of Pirescoxe, a former hamlet in the riverside of Loures (Lisbon Metropolitan Region), observing the key episodes of historical formation of its current built structure, but highlighting a particularity, which was the recent conversion of elements of rural memory, built and unbuilt, into elements of cohesivity in an otherwise discrete suburban space. This analysis discloses aspects of the process of transformation of Pirescoxe over time, through its regional context, and accounting for the evolution of its typical building forms. It stems from observation of photographic and cartographic elements, historical and contemporary, as well as of the urbanization plans that transformed this space. The conclusion notes how the most decisive intervention in Pirescoxe was the one that more strongly emphasized the ruins of the rural past as elements of memory and identity.