Landscape, Bilbao

Given its visual impact and social ambitions, any survey of the many urban development projects undertaken by Bilbao's city council on the outskirts of the city would no doubt include some reference to the enormous embankment that serves as a boundary to a postwar residential district. All such municipal projects, including those in Ametzola, Bolueta or more recently, Zaha Hadid's plan for the Zorrozaurre peninsula, have three basic objectives: to ameliorate the urban space of outlying districts; to improve accessibility of these areas by eliminating physical barriers; and to reduce social segregation by upgrading living conditions to the same level as those enjoyed in the city centre.

The specific aim of this intervention was the consolidation and rehabilitation of a severely degraded rocky embankment that forms a physical barrier between the lowlying main street and the district it serves. In addition, a new square was to be designed next to the foot of the embankment, turning a traffic-dominated area into a more pedestrian-friendly space.

The design by César Azcarate and Ana Morón employed inclined triangular planes of different materials to remodel the embankment. The choice of the triangle seems to be related to the formal freedom afforded by this shape. The topographical complexity of the site obliged the architects to abandon two-dimensional drawings in favour of a more manipulable, three-dimensional system – a series of points in space that create an open, 'aesthetic' matrix that could be adapted and moulded to the existing terrain. All the elements and spaces follow the logic of the triangular topography: the stairs linking the different levels; the sitting areas and larger horizontal planes (Pau Casals Plaza and a games park); the urban furniture, etc.

Here, geometry was the guiding rule for the treatment and design of spaces. The choice of materials seems no less logical, in the sense that they 'feel' inevitable: the existing black rock itself; the green vegetation; the multicoloured flowers; the plain grey, oxidized green or brown of the concrete that underpin the character of the terrain; the water that covers two big triangles in the Pau Casals Plaza... In addition to these, there is another basic element, even more symbolic and intangible: light. By night, light seems to reconstruct the silhouette of the hill as spotlights illuminate certain areas (triangles) of the embankment, while during the day these highlights are forgotten and the entire intervention seems to speak equally.

Due to project management issues, the construction work occurred in two stages, eighteen months apart. The first stage entailed the construction of Pau Casals Plaza and part of the embankment nearest to it. The second stage, currently in progress, encompasses the entire northern part of the embankment. In this area some of the triangles will be clad in gold-coloured metal sheeting in order to emphasize the artificial/natural duality.

Already this project has successfully conquered the existing physical barrier and created new social spaces. As such, it is more than a simple regeneration of a degraded space: it is a wide-ranging landscaping project that reinterprets a disused space, converting it into a dynamic and habitable place for the people of Bilbao.