Urban Braid

Close to the center of Torre Pacheco, you'll find Miguel de Cervantes Street. This street, which serves the locals, provides access to the Luis Manzanares High School and the Official Language School of the municipality. With a straight layout, it had a clear dominance of cars over pedestrians, with an approximate ratio of 4:1 in its cross-section. It is precisely this dominance of vehicles that motivates the local administration to continue the urban reflection process that other spaces in the locality have already benefited from.

The intention is to use this street as an urban experiment, presenting a possible modification with low economic investment but high impact on the development of pedestrian traffic in the neighborhood. This highlights the desire to reclaim the city for its residents.

The strategy followed to recolonize public space has been the reorganization of the main pedestrian and vehicular flows, intertwining them to reduce vehicle speed by creating a more complex route, while also providing more space at the exits of the Luis Manzanares High School and the Language School. To emphasize these new routes and areas for lingering, urban furniture is used, placed in such a way that despite the new urbanization being just a few lines on the ground, it is necessary to follow them to overcome the obstacles of the journey.

The selected planters resemble traditional clay pots of the area but on a much larger scale and in white color, contrasting, in a sculptural manner, with the colors that organize the new circulations. Additionally, different native species with low maintenance are used to assist in the renaturalization of the urban environment.

The result is a new street with a profoundly pedestrian character that aims to ask the locals what kind of space they want, inviting them to slow down, stop, and enjoy the city.

Directing Architects: Diego Martín de Torres + Enrique Parra

Collaborators: Jorge Puente, Alberto Alonso

Photography: Imagen Subliminal