RIVERSIDE WALK

Abstract

Since 2009, and as part of the Neighborhood Law (Ley de Barrios of Catalonia) there is a strategic plan to integrate neighborhoods Baró de Viver and Bon Pastor in the city of Barcelona. The guidelines of the plan are to improve public space and to better connect neighborhoods to each other and the adjoining districts and municipalities. Within the strategy includes opening the Besos River to the urban territory through green corridors and installation of equipment. In this sense, the argument is to provide qualified public space to encourage the urban cohesiveness of the neighborhoods through the creation of a new Riverside Walk. The project consists in converting an urban highway into a pacified walk. The stroll also attempts to pacify the area by removing the visual and acoustic pollution caused by the Ronda Litoral (Highway next to the Besos River). In response to this problem the project consists in covering the Ronda Litoral, creating 1.5km of qualified public space, where a set of vegetation and the generation of sun areas will create different spaces that invigorate the territory and connect the neighborhoods. The platform covering the Ronda Litoral includes peaceful meetings with each and every one of the streets that are right with it. The Riverside Walk will be found within less than 400m from 4 metro stations and will have three pedestrian walkways as an access to Barcelona from the neighboring municipality of Santa Coloma. The installation of common equipment, to be shared by the two neighborhoods in the central part of the Riverside Walk is a guiding principle of the integrated strategy. Within the guidelines of the plan for the area of Ley de Barrios lies the importance of public participation; in that sense it is contemplated a participatory process from the initial design phase of the stroll, where subject for debate, reflection and proposal neighbors will design the walk and their equipment. The process will contemplate since the beginning the idea of covering the Ronda Litoral. The Riverside Walk will link the neighborhoods and the industrial area to the Besos River, plus articulate the area through qualified public space. With a language of urban design the Riverside Walk project is presented as one of the three strands of the strategy of articulations for urban cohesion in the area.