GUADAIRA RIVERSIDE PARK. SEVILLE, SPAIN
DATE SHEET
Architects: Francisco Gómez Díaz.
Baum Lab
Engineering Consulting: APIA XX S.A.
Developer: Guadalquivir Hydrographical Confederation
Project Head: Miguel Ángel Llamazares, GHC
Funding: ERDF-Seville City Council
Budget: 16.583.389 €
Project: 2005
Construction: 2007-2009
Contributors: Héctor Romero Rubio, architect
Pablo Gómez Rodríguez, architecture student
Construction company: UTE Heliopol-Juan López Reyes
Publications: Catalogue of Good Practice in Landscape (Publisher: European Union) Seville Architecture Guide
The Environmental Regeneration and Recovery of Open Spaces and Green Areas in the banks of the Guadaíra River is one of several works included in the Plan for Hydrologic and Forest Restoration and Banks Protection in the municipality of Seville, which is being undertaken by a consortium involving the Spanish Ministry of Natural Environment, the Guadalquivir Hydrographical Confederation and the Urban Planning Authority of Seville.
A left tributary of the Guadalquivir, the Guadaíra River has historically been heavily marred by the uncontrolled disposal of waste, both from urban areas —such as Alcalá de Guadaíra or the southern sector of Seville— and from the industrial areas which have arisen between these two municipalities. Furthermore, its original course has been modified, so that its confluence with the Guadalquivir River is nowadays located downstream from the locks regulating access to the Port of Seville.
This neglect of the river had obscured its importance as the backbone of the flour industry, with a string of water mills along its course —two of them, the San Juan de los Teatinos mill and the now demolished Judea mill, are within the limits of this park—. Such was the relevance of this industry that the railway which used to run along the right bank of the Guadaíra River, linking Seville and Alcalá de Guadaíra, was called the “Bakers’ Railway”; even the city was once known as “Alcalá of the Bakers”. This highlights the importance of the Guadaíra River as a first-class local heritage site.
Besides, the Guadaíra River has also assumed the role of a structuring element for the three municipalities it connects: Alcalá de Guadaíra, Seville and Dos Hermanas, where its new confluence with the Guadalquivir is located. Because of this, the river has great potential to act as a strategic element within the system of open spaces of the Seville metropolitan area.
GOALS
The main goal of the project has been the creation of a single, unitary zone including the whole of the river banks, as the progressive implantation of infrastructure around the river had caused the banks to be split into several unconnected plots. This not only includes the inner connectivity of the park; the confluences of the park with the surrounding urban areas have been planned with special care to ensure the pedestrian and motorized permeability of the park, since ensuring citizen attendance is the best strategy for its success.
A second goal of the project was the restoration of the hydraulic infrastructure, by water treatment, river bed cleanup and with specific works in the banks which respect the stability of the ecosystem while allowing for a better landscape integration with the rest of the park. The landscape integration has involved both structural elements of the park —such as the Seville ring-road, the Guadaíra river and the infrastructure within the banks— and cultural heritage elements, specially the mills and other traces from past hydraulic developments.
Along these lines, the presence of water along the course of the Guadaíra River has been guaranteed owing to a series of dams structured in several levels which allow for diverting water to the pre-existing channels, which have been recovered as part of the historical hydraulic infrastructure.
The most important pre-existing dam is that of the San Juan de Teatinos mill, which had been sealed by the deposit of sediment along the river bed and thus had altered the river course by nearly 100 meters. In addition to creating a recreational activity centre, works in that zone have involved restoration of the mill and creation of a water body maintained by the dam.
The supply channel to the old Judea mill has also been restored, as has the drainage channel to the Pablo de Olavide University. In both cases, the clear-water channels have been recreated following their pre-existing routes, traces of which were sufficiently present in the park. In the first case, the undertaken archaeological research has revealed its complete structure, whereas the second channel has been included as part of the irrigation infrastructure to create a more humid ecosystem in the area, complementing the reforestation works.
The hydraulic infrastructure, formed by a system of pools fed from the nearby river, has been complemented with an irrigation system for the community gardens. These kitchen gardens are located along the edge where the city and the park meet and should enable the population to adopt the park as its own, becoming a neighbourhood landmark. They would be operated by the Neighbours’ Association and would be leased for a given time, so as to ensure good and productive use of the land.
The gravity-fed system of pools supporting the irrigation infrastructure is linked to the stay areas, that is, specific locations within the park which foster public activities, both for rest and for recreation. The enabling idea for this whole strategy is the public use of the whole area of the park as well as of the hydraulic public domain of the Guadaíra River, and it is from this basic dogma that the rest of the intervention stems.
With regards to the track and road system, the new road structure set forth by the Seville General Urban Plan has been complemented by a multi-purpose network of tracks. In some cases, these tracks are for exclusive pedestrian use and reach all points within the park, ensuring adequate conditions of accessibility regardless of existing barriers. In other cases, they follow a mixed use model, with controlled access points for authorized motor vehicles and public and emergency services which connect the park to existing or planned main roads.
Parking lots are planned near these roads and close to activity centres, so that they may serve as starting points for walks around the park. The possibility of bicycle access is ensured by linking the pedestrian tracks with the bike lanes. The track network has been completed with wood pedestrian bridges over the channels and courses which are well-integrated in the environment where they are located.
Furthermore, all interventions above have been complemented by the creation of a vast forest canopy; the reforestation works have covered the park with a forest of indigenous species, with the goal of enabling citizen use of the park as a recreational place with adequate environmental qualities and infrastructure, following a landscape planning project which is well integrated with each area of the park.
To that end, it is important to note the strategy of having a well-defined geometrical structure in the park-neighbourhood boundary along the Su Eminencia Road —where the previously described community gardens, as well as supporting infrastructure for a weekly flea market, are located—, which becomes blurred when progressing towards the inner part of the park and tends to mimic natural elements, such as the course of the Guadaíra River, becoming organic forest masses which stem from the riparian forest along the river banks or the channels.
With regards to species used in the reforestation, indigenous plants have been chosen to match each area of the park by combining deciduous and evergreen species, since there are stay areas which need sunlight in the winter and shadow in the summer and which are better suited by deciduous trees, whereas other locations should maintain a constant image as landscape references and are populated with evergreen species, even though there will be seasonal changes in leaf colour.
LANDSCAPE PLANNING
Landscape integration for the whole area of the Guadaíra River Banks Park has been a key goal of this intervention, so as to get over the appearance of a wasteland with no redeeming qualities, with few forest areas —linked to the river course or to previous reforestation efforts— whose lack of irrigation systems was identified as an important flaw.
In addition to this, however, it was a goal of the project to create a landscape, in the sense of adapting the land to better suit the urban and territorial scene, paying great attention to sights, reducing impacts and integrating the plethora of foreign and pre-existing elements in the park as a part of its heritage.
This landscape planning project has gone beyond a simple reforestation of spaces within the limits of the park, giving specific answers to the particular problems arising in each part of the park. The land, with its basically flat topography bisected by the Seville ring-road, has greatly differing characteristics in each of its boundaries. Whereas each of the singular places in the park should be made relevant according to its own characteristics, they should also respond to a master plan: the integration, as a linking element of the diversity.
Because of this reason, the park begins with an orthogonal and strict geometry near the city boundary, mimicking the planning of the neighbourhood, and then dilutes this geometry into more organic forms as it approaches the river course —a “true”, and thus meandering, course— and the gentle slopes which are located in its south-eastern end.
In the same way, the community gardens —which, as previously stated, would be directly operated by the neighbours— are located near the urban area, and represent a colourful mosaic within the reforestation strategy, supplied by the projected irrigation channel network and enclosed to allow for their controlled use.
From that point on, the track network leads the visitor to rest and recreation areas and to the proposed equipments, which are concentrated in two main areas: that of the San Juan de Teatinos mill and that of the former Judea mill, restoring the relevance of these heritage sites.
And the planned forest, which becomes progressively more diluted and organic, integrates seamlessly with the riparian forest of the river banks, keeping and improving upon what already exists.
With regards to species, which are all indigenous, they may be classified according to their areas of implantation. The river banks have been repopulated with populus alba, salix alba, fraxinus angustifolius, celtis australis and ulmus pumilla, whereas for degraded or erosion-prone areas a strategy of repopulation with a sclerophyll Mediterranean forest has been chosen, including quercus rotundifolia, olea europaea var, sylvestris, ceratonia siliqua and pinus halepensis, complemented with shrub species such as smilax aspera, chamaerops humilis, pistacia lentiscos, quercus coccifera, asparagus stipularis, asparagus alba, daphne gnidium, rhamnus alaternus, rhamnus oleoides, retama sphaerocarpa and spartium junceum.
Finally, species chosen for equipment zones, tracks and stay and recreation areas include gleditsia triacanthos, robinia pseudoacacia, melia azederach, platanus hybrida, morus alba, celtis australis, ceratonia siliqua, cersis siliquastrum, populus sp, ulmus sp, acer sp , prunas sp, aesculus hippocastaneum and pinus sp, supported by shrub species such as vites agnus-casti, punica granatum, viburnum tinus, jasminum officinale, jasminum nudiflorum, jasmnum polyathum, pittosporum tobira, syringa vulgaris, nerium oleander, philadelphus coronaries, photinia serrulata, eunonimus sp, pyracantha coccinea, cotoneaster occidentales, ligustrum vulgare and datura arborea.
The goal has been creating a park with design choices that ensure its sustainability, taking into account the climate and the specific characteristics of the area, minimizing the required conservation as much as possible and revitalizing the Guadaíra River as an essential part of the landscape, as the second river of Seville after the Guadalquivir, and as a strategic element within the Seville metropolitan area.