From the past, we retain the memory of a valley between hills and a watercourse that headed towards the Tagus river, followed by layers of productive land, where social amalgams have long been formed in this landscape. From liquid to solid, Praça do Martim Moniz is an attraction that emanates from disorder, chaos, permissibility. Confluences, conflicts and harmonies are everyday life in this place – a social stage of unique richness, where the discomfort of an artificial environment prevails.

Keeping this stage as heritage, the origin of the place is recovered in a process of renaturalization. Cuts are created on this empty canvas so that nature can emerge again and contaminate the city. Cuts that are nascent, gills that integrate into the city’s respiratory system. Lines that were once limits now point, suggest, but never confine – a deconstruction of the limit that the square imposed, inviting permeability and freedom.

The garden reflects a composition of three cuts that create distinct topography and plant masses – pinhal, choupal and forest. The first two mark the entrance to the north. Under the pine forest, to the west, a clearing opens up facing Mouraria and the Castle. To the east, the poplar forest shades a yard where a fresh amphitheater stimulates social and commercial life. To the south, a dense urban forest and a slope protect a clearing that overlooks Graça and Senhora do Monte. The concept of fused Mediterranean is introduced to the landscape: mediterranean vegetation as the majority base that merges and harmonizes with exotic vegetation, in an expressive dialogue with the social cultures that populate here.

These three moments converge into a center: a water square. Water driven by the tension of the valley that flows and is retained in a gentle dam. A mirrored plane is formed, with an indefinite limit, whose level is dynamic throughout the year. Here, everything converges – topography and water, a symbol of life, become common ground, a union between cultures, a memory of the past and a mirror of the present. With this spatial and symbolic centrality, the garden opens up to Mouraria.

Exploring the dynamics of this place of transition, people become a privileged element of fluid mobility, guaranteeing free movement, expression and appropriation, in a garden that celebrates the natural identity and human richness of this place. Jardim da Mouraria is a celebration of the people, the people of Mouraria, those here and there, those of yesterday and those of tomorrow, those who pass by and those who remain.