Revitalization of the Banda do Rio neighborhood, Bueu

National competition

Competition

Date
2024

Location
Bueu, Pontevedra

Direction and authorship / Elena Vilches Álvarez y David Moreno Rangel

Enmedio collaborators / Encarna Márquez, Carlos Macías, Karina García, Jara Sánchez, Álvaro Velasco.

Environmental consultant / Enmedio Studio

Client / Bueu City Council Governing Board

“In the fabric of life, the [net] stands as the guiding thread that links past with present, dreams with realities, and communities with eternal tides. In the heart of Bueu, between the mists of the Atlantic and the echo of ancient seafaring legends, the [net] emerges as a sacred symbol of a history woven with threads of sacrifice and hope.
Like the skillful hands of fishermen and an ancient skill, they weave their nets to the rhythm of the waves. Thus, generation after generation, the bonds of a community united by the pulse of the sea are also woven. In each knot, in each mesh, the essence of a tradition that goes back to the dawn of time beats, when the back and forth of the [nets] was the melody that accompanied the dawn of each day.”

[Nets]
To determine the strategies that mark the elaboration of the guidelines for the new Master Plan of Bueu, it was essential to establish a methodology that would decipher the main keys. And this is how the [nets] proposal works.
Firstly, a thorough territorial analysis is carried out, where the landscape and heritage values ​​that the context presents can already be seen. The proximity to different beaches, its location between two ports, the richness of the maritime and mountainous landscape that surrounds it, its proximity to a ZEC of the Natura 2000 Network, the landmarks that preserve the identity and past events, and the existing routes for various sports activities (cycling, hiking, boating, etc.) highlight the privileged location of the neighbourhood, making it a meeting point for various audiences and interests.
Secondly, the scale of the study is increased, to understand the urban, economic and social reality. Bueu has suffered a constant decline in population since the 2000s, and lacks continuity in the number of inhabitants depending on whether or not it is a holiday period. It is difficult to understand that such a privileged location suffers from the uninterrupted loss of residents who could live with such quality of life, a void that occurs in so many towns in the rest of Spain.
Prior to the search for strategies to reactivate the Banda do Río neighborhood, it was necessary to immerse oneself in its reality and detect and locate the weaknesses of the place and the threats, but also its strengths and opportunities. And that is why after the thorough study of the neighborhood and the requests of the residents, a plan is generated where the result of said analysis is located in detail.
In this way, the DNA of an urban nucleus is deciphered, which allows each of the problems to be treated surgically, recovering the strong identity that the neighborhood had in the past, and generating a new scenario that serves as a call for new inhabitants who can find a way of subsistence in a privileged place.

Using the community [network], the biodiversity [network], the regulatory [network] or the dynamic [network], a wide range of solutions are activated that cover all dimensions of sustainability (environmental, social, economic), achieving equity, livability and viability. Principles of compactness are proposed (proximity between urban components, promotion of pedestrian and bicycle use), complexity (diversity of possible activities in urban space), efficiency (related to the use of resources that minimize the impact on the environment), and stability and social cohesion (creating equal opportunities through the diversity of uses in public space with a range of reactivating activities).