How do young Madrid imagine the future? Starting from this premise, a few months ago the city council launched an ideas competition so that they could, individually or in groups, submit proposals aimed at recovering eight abandoned spaces distributed over seven areas. Result … A new park was created in Plaza Castilla, an environmental and social corridor in Bellas Vistas and an urban park in Antonio Lopez. Three winning projects that reimagine the capital and that perhaps could one day become a reality.
“Because urban planning is not done so that only city planners and architects can enjoy it, but it must be done so that the city can be enjoyed. That’s why we want to move beyond this old tradition of doing very restricted and planned urban planning. “What we want to establish is a model for the city,” explained Delegate for Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility, Borja Carabante, who presented the awards on Tuesday morning.
In this way, the three winners took to the stage of the Carabanchel Cultural Center to receive their check for 1,000, 2,000 and 3,000 euros depending on third, second and first place out of a total of 56 finalist ideas. They all offer a “creative response,” and therefore do not have to be “technically viable,” as the competition technicians explained.
Thus, the top-rated “dream” was the fruit of the imagination of Nina Elisabeth Méndez Bisgaard and Maximiliam Stjernström, students of the Fundamentals of Architecture degree at the European University of Madrid. In their case, they expected Amaniel Vivo to reclaim Bellas Vistas.
The project proposes to revitalize the park and canal by creating an environmental and social corridor that restores its urban value. Thus, unused streets and lanes are removed and the land is restructured with native plants, rest areas and pedestrian routes. In addition, the project authors propose to integrate cultural and commercial spaces under the arches for the residents of Bellas Vistas and to integrate wooden structures that provide shade from the canal and thus can become a place of activities and views towards the city.
The second winning project was carried out by Sofía Muñoz Montero and Natalia Díaz Amate, architecture students at the University of Granada who are embarking on the redesign of the Plaza de Castilla area. Under the title “Raíces de agua” they propose the creation of a raised park for pedestrian pleasure and an underground water journey that will serve as natural irrigation for the new green area.
“Water, which is collected and stored under the park, becomes the driving force of the project: it generates the terrain, defines the roads and nourishes the plants. On this basis, a continuous park designed for pedestrians improves the physical connections between the different key points of the environment, highlighting the ways that connect the history of the place to elements such as the Fourth Warehouse. At the same time, this demonstrates spaces of survival and movement, where squares appear at different levels (high, medium or low) inviting you to escape the noise and reconnect with nature, urban memory and the Madrid skyline,” the project authors explain.
Elena María Arenas, who completed her studies at the Higher Technical School of Architecture in Madrid (ETSAM), received third prize for the film “El Huerto de Antonio”, directed by Antonio López. In building No. 27 on this street, he plans to grow natural products. Also in this environment, it plans to connect with the Madrid-Rio through the extension of the pier, with the Paseo de Yeserías by extending the existing connecting bridge as well as other formulas to facilitate access to the environment. In addition, the area will be equipped with an occupational therapy center, swings and “green” gyms, among other resources.