Antonio Maciá A&D’s design for a café inside a large vertical garden uses a XIX-century division of the building to organise the interior of the old town of Elche. Because of its proximity to numerous historical buildings, the idea of the Studio was to minimise the building so as not to rival its environment and to respect its historical memory.
Description of the project by Antonio Maciá A&D
In 2013, the municipality of Elche launched a list of 35 urban spaces for their transformation through the construction of cafeterias and bandstands. Number 25 was one of the most interesting places: Santa Isabel Square. This spot in the city has extraordinary urban conditions due to the relevance of the buildings allocated in its surroundings: Basilica of Santa María (s. XVIII), a tower which once was part of the Arabian city wall, Palace of Altamira (s. XV) and the Municipal Park of Elche (World Heritage).
The organization of the competition demanded this space, a cafeteria of 20sqm with a terrace over the existing pavement and a green wall dressing and an old, empty dividing wall. Our main goal was, from the very beginning, to regenerate this residual area located in such an emblematic spot of the city. In order to do so, we decided to design an invisible architecture that wouldn’t compete with its old neighbours, and also in order to make the new vertical garden the main focus of our intervention. Therefore, we built a quasi-vertical garden which accommodates therein the construction of the cafeteria, restrooms and storage room, leaving the rest of the square free for the terrace to appear.
The construction work started with the construction of a triangulated structure formed by steel profiles fixed to the existing diving wall covered by two membranes (PVC and felt), which accommodate the irrigation system and plants. The garden is a tile of 150sqm large made up of over 3000 different Mediterranean species, some of them endemic and singular (Mirto, Hipérico, Lavanda, Carex, Tulbalghia, Pennisetum or Lampranto are a few of them). Thanks to its hydroponic irrigation system and the mentioned selection of plants, the use of pesticides is not required for its maintenance, which fosters natural pollination. It should be pointed out that this green wall is able to create oxygen for over 100 people, it will catch 70 tons of gases, more than 26 kilos of heavy metals and almost 14 kilos of dust in a year.
The whole intervention is completed with a small concert area and an outdoor cinema. Also, connected to the project, there has been an artistic intervention in which the umbrellas of the terrace have been used as a canvas on which some local artists have painted.
