Vigo: Project Open Vigo to the sea

MARITIME MANAGEMENT EDGE OF VIGO
National Ideas Competition. 1993

Promenade: Construction Project 1997-1998 1995-1996
Ria Station: Construction Project 2000-2001 1995-1998
Berbés Square: Construction Project 2001-2003 1995-1998
Star Square: Construction Project 2002-2004 1997-1998

It involved the Star Square and runs through Berbés Square, old fishing port town. The Star Square is now a space formed by the backs of four institutional buildings. The tunnel entrance road traffic is the eastern edge of the square, the only front unbuilt. To lessen the impact of the mouth of the tunnel is proposing the construction of a zigzag part, a grandstand that breaks through the trees and formalizes a raised terrace on which we place a cafe-restaurant.

In the meeting between the Gardens and the sea Elduayen proposes a building shaped U starts with a long ramp that climbs gently up to the height of a square-gazebo on the dock of Laxe. A grandstand overlooking the port area looking formalize this intense relationship between the sea and the city. Inside contains Ria Station, tourism offices, a cafe and a restaurant, rooms organized around a large central space, common hall lit from above by a large skylight that rests on the steps of the building.This building-built door on tunnel traffic and parking seeks to resolve in a single gesture as a unit and going to a simple titration and numerous various issues raised in this sector of the Paseo.

As the Promenade and Gardens Elduayen the proposal involves setting new pedestrian spaces, establishing a hierarchy between areas of travel and tours, resizing the width and capacity of the old road paths, trying to offer the city a diversified but outdoor unit.

At the ends of the grounds raised two small buildings. In one of the entrances and in order to camouflage underground ducts poses a small pavilion, which is nothing but a large deck, leaning on the two volumes given, defining a new covered entrance space to the gardens, which are dota besides flowers and newspaper kiosks. The pond side enables an ingenious solution to the air intake of the ventilation tunnel through a longitudinal slot, almost a line that divides the surface of the water.

At the eastern end of the two-storey underground construction of facilities required to emerge to surface a number of elements that needed to be controlled: fireplaces generators, tunnel ventilation, access to parking, etc..Items that need to take air and expel stale air. They are like the gills of mechanical artifacts buried. A number of pieces slotted concrete slats protected by aluminum, similar titrations and tidy on the platform intended to solve the problems while defining new urban areas. A wide and light pergola covers all parts free, giving unity to the acting and access to the garden gate. The operation is completed with the construction of a power of 30 m diameter at the roundabout of Areal, Access Control to the port, as well as vertical facing access ramps Beiramar tunnel, buildings all made with Corten steel.

In all these interventions and the design of the pieces of furniture that have been produced expressly for this promenade: lighting, benches, litter bins, tree grates, etc.. have prevailed for economy, rationality and economic efficiency. Choosing good materials in our case magnificent pieces of granite, and a careful and exacting execution to ensure the durability and low maintenance costs. Criteria aimed at eliminating excesses so common today in many interventions in open spaces, maybe introducing personal expression against a certain component of anonymity and in the presence of a thin architecture, intense relationship with nature, says his undeniable will to leave, to be hardly.

This project has received the European award for Best Urban Design 1995 granting the Portuguese magazine architecture "Architecti".

Source: http://www.vazquezconsuegra.com/