Almada envisions a ’15-minute’-style innovation district

Ambitious project that will reportedly require 800 million euros to carry out

Earlier this week, the Municipality of Almada and NOVA University (Lisbon) announced the launch of a grand-scale project which envisions the creation of an innovation district that will attract national and international professionals who will be able to work and research at the university’s planned School of Science and Technology and live sustainable lives in the district, based on the vanguard concept of ’15-minute’ city, meaning that everything they need will be easily accessible by foot or micromobility means.

This project is inspired by the work-live-play concept

Almada is part of the greater Lisbon metropolitan area, and the innovation district itself will occupy 399 hectares in the area of Monte da Caparica and Porto Brandão. More than a quarter of this space will be dedicated to greenery.

The project is for the time being replete with numbers, though lacking exact definition of funding sources, it is expected that a lot of that will come from the private sector as many companies have expressed interest in it, as well as from the European Union, which is keen on supporting urban transformation under sustainable principles. In fact, the basis of the project is reportedly the initial smaller start-up initiatives, which the municipality and university would like to converge into one larger project.

The campus of the school (which will be ready by 2023) will be the central point around which development is expected to take place and when fully completed it should attract some 4500 new residents, the building of 1000 housing units and the overall creation of 17,000 jobs that would be the direct result of the new district’s economic clout.

With this project, the Lisbon metropolis wants to claim a spot on the ever-growing map of modern, sustainable, multi-use, innovative cities committed to raising the quality of life of their residents through the work-live-play concept that recognizes the need for balance in an individual’s lifestyle.