Fertile ground: cultivating a renewed identity through architecture while providing a solution to sustain the natural biodiversity and thermal waters in Manteigas, Portugal

This work explores the contributive role that architecture plays in sustaining the biodiversity and the thermal waters present in the rural landscape of Manteigas, Portugal. The study proposes the design of a modern day treatment and research center in the rural town, situated on one of the largest glacier valleys in Europe in the heart of the Serra da Estrela mountain range. Once alive with all the quaint characteristics that typify an idyllic rural identity, this town now faces a steep population decrease. A new approach for maintaining an authentic character, and a “sense of place” is presented which defends the rural space as a genuinely experiential realm. The design accepts and interprets the natural geology of the site, harnessing the therapeutic thermal waters that continue to flow from the glacier line of the valley. This research is a proposal for an environmental sustainable cycle of local and regional rejuvenation that will not be easily broken. The design proposal aims to build an infrastructure that will revive the identity of the community as a place of study; an investigative laboratory for modern day natural healing therapies that will act as a catalyst to fuel future development and stimulate the local and regional economies.