“EL ENCUENTRO” PARK IN ARTXANDA, BILBAO

Area of activity
CITY AND TERRITORY

Service
Urban and landscape design

Client
Bilbao City Council

Scope

• Study of alternatives
• Drafting of the construction project

Duration
2022

The Artxanda Activation Plan aims to draw the strategy for the responsible social, cultural and economic activation of Artxanda along with the recovery of a natural space that is part of our tradition and our history.

A priority is its empowerment as a natural setting for leisure and relevant use both for people who live and develop their activities there, as for the citizenship of both Bilbao and Sondika, ultimately transcending the territorial scale of Bilbao Bizkaia.

Bilbao has as one of its strategic objectives the quality of life together with the sustainable development of its space as a city. And in this sense, the area occupied by the Artxanda cornice mainly comprises land corresponding to the municipalities of Sondika and Bilbao, without prejudice to the land attributed to other localities such as Zamudio and Erandio.

Within this area, and as a result of the collaboration between the municipalities of Bilbao and Sondika, an opportunity arises to generate a referential green area that straddles the two municipalities. A new space called to become one of the main assets for the use and enjoyment of the city. It has multiple possibilities, extension and capacity to enhance the “Green Lung” of Artxanda as a place of reference, both for its location, between the backbone of the Bilbao Estuary and the Txorierri Valley, and for the strengths it presents in development potential.

Therefore, the scope of this project includes an extension that should include various intergenerational uses, botanical and plant reference spaces, as well as starring the final push to the pedestrian space of this natural environment. It should allow leisure uses and encourage the use of public transport, reinforcing the current sports and hospitality uses.

All this to create the Parque del Encuentro, with an area of almost 66,700 m2 as one of the reference spaces of the new Artxanda.

The key aspects to be addressed with the project are to enhance pedestrian routes inside the park, limiting vehicle access and ensuring pedestrian safety along the routes. Facilitate access from the locations where vehicles can park and the existing public transport stops, establish a natural environment of reference in Bilbao in terms of the generation of differential green areas with furniture facilities for children and sports use.