During the late 90s and early 2000s the spaces in the Porto of Lisbon were a historical place for 3×3 basketball tournaments, and now they have regained new life and promise to be the new favorite place for street basketball players. The space located at Doca do Espanhol received an intervention by the urban artist Flix. The project was promoted by the Administração do Porto de Lisboa and Hoopers.
The goal is to bring the basketball community back to this area, which during the 1990s and 2000 was a regular spot to host 3×3 tournaments in the city of Lisbon. This initiative aimed at creating a new sports area to energize this area, while combining sports and urban art.
Flix’s intervention works as a big artistic mural and pays tribute to the origins and values of this place. From the top, you can see a set of nautical flags that form the word “Alcântara”. This space contains two 3×3 basketball courts and its free throw lines refer to lifebuoys, a place where basketball players will go often to “save” a game play or even a game.
For Ricardo Medeiros, Board Member of the Administração do Porto de Lisboa, “this project is one of the first steps of our vision of making this area and these spaces more interesting and closer to the people and companies here located. We are very happy with the final result and we firmly believe that it is going to be widely used by the community”.
We had already worked with Flix and it was during that project he showed us this idea of making a field with nautical flags. This space was a reference for the community in the past and the fact we can bring back the 3×3 is a mixture of pride and nostalgia. We are confident the space will be used by many people.” says André Costa from Hoopers.
The project closes the season of public interventions and it aims to anticipate several new projects that the Portuguese startup is preparing, such as a community event – date to be announced soon – which will combine basketball, urban art and hip-hop.
The space is open for the public. In addition to the basketball courts, the space will receive two new sports equipment – a ping pong table and a boxing bag. The project was supported by Empark, Federação Portuguesa de Ténis de Mesa, Galeria de Arte Urbana da Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, JOPINTO, Robbialac, Sport Design and Social Innovation Sports**.