Atlantic Park

Description

The Vaguada de las Llamas was a large reserve of free space on the outskirts of Santander destined by the General Plan to become a public park. Its location, in the center of a large urban growth perpendicular to the Sardinero beach, its special topography in the form of a watercourse and its narrow and elongated shape (1100 m long by 300 m wide) made the Vaguada de la Llamas a truly peculiar urban piece. To these physical data we had to add a feature that made the Llamas in a truly unique place: the presence of a stream at its lowest point whose partial stagnation caused the emergence of an important native colony of reeds, unique in its extension.For us, making a park in Santander has meant the opportunity to experiment in a geographical context in which we had never had the opportunity to work before. Having the Atlantic as an environmental framework has been a novelty that we wanted to explore in all its aspects, not only botanical and biological but also in those that directly affect the morphology of the project.The proposal has been developed based on three structural aspects. The first refers to the urban structure of the park. The park is organized through two roads that define its perimeter: one already existing, the S-20 highway and another specially created, parallel to the Avenida de los Castros, which ends the park on the side of the universities.The main entrance, coinciding with the Sports Pavilion traffic circle, gives road access to the main parking lot and the park through a grove of trees that culminates with a viewpoint over the Vaguada and a green amphitheater. This access seeks to relate the two supposed intensities of the park: the massive one, related to the possible big events that will take place there, and the more intimate one, related to the relaxed walk and the more particular enjoyment of the place.To this main access must be added the perimeter accesses intended to relate the park to the two surrounding conurbations and to each other: the University Zone, with a fluctuating, very weekday, daytime and generally young population, and the housing area on the southern slope of the S-20, family-oriented, permanent and with a wide age range.(Batlleiroig)