LILY PAD, CITY CORTEX – LISBON, PORTUGAL

Lily Pad is a soft, reconfigurable playscape installed along the banks of the Tagus River in Lisbon’s Belém district. Designed as a counterpoint to static public monuments, the project proposes a new kind of urban gesture—one rooted in adaptability, tactility, and collective engagement. Rather than imposing a singular form or narrative, Lily Pad invites passersby to pause, gather, and interact with a landscape that shifts over time, responding to the changing rhythms of the city.

Constructed from modular blocks of compressed cork, the installation explores the potential of natural, renewable materials to reshape the language of public space. Cork’s acoustic, thermal, and textural properties allow the space to soften the urban environment—both physically and atmospherically—while offering a durable, low-impact intervention that resists permanence. Its forms are intentionally open-ended, encouraging rest, play, and repose across ages and communities.

The project was commissioned by City Cortex, a research-driven initiative curated by Guta Moura Guedes and supported by Amorim, the world’s leading cork producer. As part of a wider investigation into how architecture can support more ecological and inclusive cities, Lily Pad functions both as public furniture and urban prototype. It imagines a future in which materials are not extracted and discarded, but reconfigured and reabsorbed—where the built environment grows softer, more porous, and more attuned to the bodies and climates that move through it. Lily Pad reclaims the urban ground as a site of possibility—transforming Lisbon’s waterfront not through spectacle, but through subtle invitations to gather, rest, and reimagine what public space can be.