New Ways

New Ways

What did this initiative focus on?

The NEW WAYS initiative brought together Portuguese and Norwegian architecture faculties to study new uses and proposals of sustainable and strategic character for old deactivated railway stations in Portugal.

A hundred old railway stations deactivated in the last decades, need rehabilitation and a new life to stimulate the social and economic dynamics in a significant part of the territory.

The Serra Henriques Foundation (FSH) signed in December 2019 an agreement with Infraestruturas de Portugal Património (IPP) to prepare proposals for intervention in the deactivated railway stations, mostly buildings of historical and cultural interest. IPP has handed over to FSH the cooperation with architecture faculties and national and international partners, to jointly study solutions of sustainable and strategic nature.

The NEWWAYS initiative brings FSH and IPP together with partners from BAS (Bergen Architecture School) and ISCTE to form a single study group able to propose new uses for these buildings and their surrounding areas.

The Norwegian partners have a vast experience in similar challenges and in nature tourism, which represents a fundamental knowledge for the study of the reactivation of this heritage that was previously connected by the railway lines between stations.

The national partners are already studying the introduction of this challenge in the curricula of their architecture students, thus opening the possibility for other faculties to do the same.

The results have been translated into proposals capable of attracting the support of local authorities and the interest of investors who may implement the partial or total rehabilitation of this heritage.

The intervention in these buildings represents a contribution to the development of peripheral and deserted territories, seeking to mitigate social and economic disparities in the country.

• NEW WAYS initiative