In the cross-border region of Alentejo and Andalusia (PT-ES), in the space and environment at the confluence of the Chanza and Guadiana rivers, are located the abandoned mines of São Domingos and Las Herrerías (sec XIX-XX). The valuation of these territories is today an imperative for sustainability for communities and for the environment that were heavily affected by the impacts of intensive extraction and subsequent dismantling.  

In the global context of climate and environmental concerns, abandoned industrial spaces are increasingly becoming a potentiating resource for new creative uses and ludic activities. The safeguarding and enhancement of these spaces, as an instrument for preserving the historical legacy and regeneration allows us to see their scope extended to the concept of cultural landscape  

The patronal villages built to support mining exploration in this territory bordering the SE-SW of Portugal and Spain, come to our days as a historical legacy of industrial heritage in rural areas and as an integral part of the Mining Cultural Landscapes, forming an exemplary set and revealing the importance and economic and social dimension of the great mining exploitation of the century. XIX, in the Iberian Pyrite Belt.  

The issue of conservation and enhancement of the industrial cultural heritage and its abandoned complexes, currently leads us to multidisciplinary domains that enrich the heritage process that follows the production and dismantling cycles. 

The valuation of these territories is today a collective responsibility and a goal of sustainability for communities and the environment, but also an opportunity to be reused as a resource for activities with a touristic, cultural, ecological, scientific and educational profile.  

Within the scope of the research project “Mining Cultural Landscape in the Chanza-Guadiana border territory”, seeks to identify content in matters of typologies in the domain of architecture and urbanism that contribute to its heritage process, having as references cases of study declared by UNESCO as Mining Cultural Landscapes.