ORDINATION OF THE GUADALMEDINA RIVER

Location: Málaga

Author: José Seguí Pérez. Architect. ESTUDIO SEGUÍ

Project Date: 2012

In 2012, Malaga City Council, Junta de Andalucía and Central Government Hydrographic Confederation, convened an International Ideas Competition to provide urban and architectural solutions to one of the most important problems in Malaga: the integration of the urban area of the river Guadalmedina with the City. A “pending subject” whose action in the sixties with the realization of the Limonero Dam at the head of this urban riverbed, has become the continuous debate.

The winning project presented by our technical team, in collaboration with a wide range of specialized engineering, proposed an urban and landscape integration of the river with its city, recognizing so the identity of both historic structures and the future need to consolidate, qualify and enhance that inescapable urban “coexistence”. It is no coincidence that our motto was “More River, More City”, thus identifying this important objective. The problem of the Ordenation of the Guadlamedina River could not continue to focus exclusively on the simplicity of two extreme options where neither the simple “landscaping” of its channel, nor the bet by operations of “embossed” could provide coherent solutions to preserve its nature and urban relationship of River-City.

In the case of Guadalmedina, these actions were subordinated to a new way of managing the Limonero reservoir, which was never conceived as a “dam” but, on the contrary, as a “reservoir regulator”. Therefore, controlling the regulation of the reservoir is the principle of urbanity that requires the river bed. To try to conceive the reservoir as a dam would be to maintain a constant danger on the city, or try to use it as a header for transfer operations would be a serious mistake, since it was not designed for such a function, but instead to recover its main objective of not never cause any risk to the city. Managing the reservoir as a “regulation” and not as “accumulation” is the solution to achieve a greater city-river relationship, greater identification by discovering the banks of the river, and a greater ability to “make city”.