Pormetxeta Square

Pormetxeta Kalea, Barakaldo, Spain

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Pormetxeta Square

Pormetxeta Kalea, Barakaldo, Spain

Firm

MTM
XPIRAL

Type

Commercial › Office
Hospitality + Sport › Restaurant
Landscape + Planning › Public Park

YEAR

2011

SIZE

1,000,000 +

PORMETXETA
SQUARE, IN BARAKALDO (BILBAO)
MEMORY
on March 2011

The
new Pormetxeta Square,
located close to the Nervion
River, was the result of
the Competition “Europan VI”
developed in 2001. The project was selected to take part in the Spanish
Architecture Exhibition –On Site-
that was organized at MoMA from New York in 2006; lately the exhibited model
has been acquired by the museum for the permanent collection.

Industrial identity
The district of Barakaldo
is located in a very steep slope territory above the Nervion River, where a
complex urban planning was developed in the Sixties and was leaded by “Blast
Furnace from Vizcaya”. We have proposed to provide it with a new geography
identity, by forgetting and removing the last urban planning that Urban-Galindo
had created for this area.

Marrow of Urban Permeability
We modified the existing
planning in order to created the New Square of Barakaldo (25.223m2), for the
purpose to create to new advantages for the city: on the one hand a new access point to the urban centre,
on the other hand a better fluidity and
mobility from the city to the river, due to the industrial factories were
shut in the permeability of the city.

Equipped Communications Arteries
The very steep slope of the
plot has become in an opportunity of creation of a new urban typology. Taking
advantage of the high difference between existing levels that it is 20 meters between the
upper level and the bottom level of the plot, building a equipped slope, “the
Pormetxeta Square”, with the next strategy:

First of all several access
and approach are linked: the railway platform, the highway connection, the
entry towards the promenade river, the pedestrian and road streets, the access
from the high street, the reached from the low street, the Desert Square, the
school …
Secondly we have save all
the space that is just under of each “Pormetxeta Ramp” in order to get 2.341m2
of commercial and service public facility.
The third advantage is
working as a micro-public space: micro-squares, points of meeting, rest stands,
outdoors stays, in other words building a phenomenological sequence.
And the last advantage is
that it is acting as a multifunctional element, it works as a street furniture,
balustrade, pergola, lantern… creating a very equipped place.

The animated square
The Pormetxeta Square
appears under the long ramps. There are some holes that qualify the space with
playgrounds and it is become in a unique topography. A big artificial trees of
11.5m tall, that are made of COR-TEN steel, hang boulders on the cup of the
tree, they work as a parasol and under them the only things that you can feel
are the laughter of children, the roller skaters, the talks…
The Pormetxeta Square and the different
levels routes, that make up at the same time an unique project and also and an
in independent project, due to the contrast between both intensify their
purpose.

Architectura vs Urbanism
Our aim it is to build city. Understanding the public
space and private space as hybridization between the city planning and the
edification model, where the Architecture and the Urbanism are mixed at all
times. Consequently we have planned an urban strategy as a business and
dialogue platform between citizens, creating a new social cohesion.

between Madrid y Murcia,