El Médano was an old fishing village with disorderly development as a summer holiday location. It has a magnificent sand beach protected by eroded boulders of white pozzolan. Due to the constant battering of the beach by the Trade Winds, windsurfing has become a widely practised sport. There used to be an old deteriorated dirt track that coincided with the appearance of the promenade that was destroyed by vehicles of all types along with environmental deterioration. The effort of integration in one action that, “a priori”, would appear to resolve the pedestrians’ circulation is planned as a landscape task in which the use of urban features is minimalized to the point that elements from nature are used. Generally, the limited use of materials: stone on the retaining walls and some paving, wood on the rest of the paved surfaces, secure a fluent dialogue with nature. Two areas are differentiated: An urbanized front associated with the first part of the beach and the Town Square, and the other area with less building density. The first one is treated with red stone (Montaña Roja, Red Mountain) and a wooden track blending easily with the sand. On the second area a wooden carpet unfolds over the puzzolan rock resting on banks of the same material. In this way, the promenade is made within a softened boundary, not open to vehicular traffic, thereby protecting the impressive nature of El Médano beach.
TECHNICAL DATA: Year: 1995-1997. Location: El Médano, Granadilla, Tenerife. Architects: Antonio Corona Bosch, Arsenio Pérez Amaral, Eustaquio Martínez García. Client: Granadilla Town Council, Department of Tourism of the Canarian Government. Collaborators: DD7 (Quantity Surveyors). Photography: Jordi Bernardo, José Ramón Oller.
AWARDS: Honary Mention for the Regional Prize of Architecture in the Canaries Manuel de Oraá.
