Pilar de la Horadada Promenade / Joaquín Alvado Bañón

Architects: Joaquín Alvado Bañón
Location: Calle Mayor, 03190 Pilar de la Horadada, Alicante, Spain
Year: 2013
Photographs: David Frutos

Engineer: Miguel Angel Crespo
Project Managment: Guia Consultores
Structure: Salvador Ivorra
Geometry: Guillén, Isabél Pérez and Angel González.

From the architect. The shape of the main street and the square in “Pilar de la Horadada“ were very irregular, with a lot of sharecropping walls, patched parking and twisted lines of trees. We thought about a walk besides the sea, a pedestrian path between sand, palms and coconuts.

The town is a Mediterranean village no more than one Kilometer far from the coast and the beach. The main road divides the landscape and disconnects the sea and promenade from the citizens. Our first decision was to create a promenade working with the sensations you have when you walk along the sea. The sun, the sand, brightness, humidity, colors, trembling shadows, hotness… we wanted to bring to the village all this kind of sensations.

We have built one pedestrian level to go from the surroundings of the town to the church at the end of the walkway. There are no changes and no obstacles. We have divided the main street into several paths to order the different functions.

The walkway for pedestrians was made with one stone that change the color and the brightness. It is call “Piedra del Cabezo” and it is a mixture of sensations similar than the one you have walking on the dry and moody sand. When you arrive to the square the car disappear and the stone cover everything and change the shape into a small slope to get to the main entrance of the Church.

There is another path for several functions, parking, gardening, trees, signals, public lights and benches. Everything is connected with different surfaces using the treatment of the concrete. Washed, polished and printed concrete with flower shapes. In this mixture everything happens and at the same time there is a barrier between the people walking and the cars.

The materials we have been working with are stainless steel, color methacrylate, color polystyrene, water, several plants and trees in order to create the atmosphere of a promenade along the beach.

In your trip along the project you feel the wind, birds flying, sun on your face and humidity in your skin and the glimmering day and night lights. We tried to build a space for the citizen to meet your neighbors in a friendly way, to talk and go shopping in a casual walking and to feel the smell and humidity from the sea.