Zamalanda Park on the Nervión Riverside, designed by Burgos & Garrido Arquitectos is organized into three interconnected zones: a spacious, tree-lined upper terrace overlooking the Nervión River; a planted slope that negotiates the change in elevation and incorporates access points; and an expansive lower area crisscrossed by winding paths amidst meadows. This latter section is conceived as an open, versatile space suitable for play, sports, celebrations, strolling, and relaxation.
The primary technical undertaking involves creating a new topography that integrates the exposed railway corridor and restores continuity between the different elevation levels. The landform, path network, and vegetation manage the change in level and organize circulation routes, while the slope is treated as a "moving garden."
Zamalanda Park on the Nervión Riverside by Burgos & Garrido Arquitectos. Photograph by Roland Halbe.
Project description by Burgos & Garrido Arquitectos
The surroundings of the Portu Dock in Barakaldo are a great emptiness that shows the traces of its history. It is a blurred place, but of great beauty and with an extraordinary potential that enjoys splendid views over the Nervión estuary from its upper level and a leafy and wild horizontal landscape at its lower level. In its southern part it is crossed diagonally by the surface emergence of the closed box of a railway line that divides the area into two unconnected remains; the first leaves the slope of the hill of Arrontegi to the east, artificially cut, and the second, at the lowest level, places a large esplanade situated on the edge of the estuary that in the past housed the industrial installations of the steelworks of the Franco-Belgian Company.
The project underlines the qualities of both places – the upper terrace and the lower esplanade - and eliminates the fracture between them with a new topography that links the edge of the estuary with the urban front of Barakaldo. The park thus formalises three strips: [a] the large wooded upper terrace with views over the estuary; [b] a slope covered with wild vegetation that resolves the slope and houses the accesses; and [c] an extensive field with paths that weave between meadows, open to any activity. The field is an open and uncluttered stage where anything can happen - without specialisation or hierarchy - a football match, the adventures of children's games, putting the kites to the wind, a meeting between young people, an afternoon snack, a celebration, a walk, a bike ride or a skate, or simply the contemplation of the unique landscape of the estuary and the dock. And the hillside is, as Gilles Clément suggests, a ‘garden in movement’, free and naturalised.
