Restoration of the banks of the River Arlanzón

The city of Burgos has the opportunity to better integrate its urban fabric—its activities and its citizens—with the Arlanzón River—its landscapes and its ecology. In line with what has been successfully done in other European cities, the re-naturalization of the riverbeds, the improvement of the quality of their waters and their fluvial landscapes, helps to underline the importance of the Arlanzón River in the invaluable heritage ensemble of Burgos. Its inhabitants already enjoy the riverbanks, a varied and beautiful space, but uneven in its state of conservation and accessibility. It is necessary to project into the future the enormous landscape and social potential it has and to enrich the relationship between the city and its natural surroundings, between people and their river.

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The project is built with two distinct actions in the urban area. On one hand, the transformation of the streets and avenues that border the river within the urban area —north of the river, the Arlanzón Avenue, south, the Valladolid Street and the Palencia and José María Villacián Rebollo Avenues— into more spacious areas. These streets, currently, and anachronistically, coincide with the route of the N-120 national road. The intervention we propose also allows for smoothing traffic in the Plaza del Mío Cid and on the San Pablo and Gasset bridges.

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The second intervention in the urban area of the river is the design and re-adaptation, in a more natural way, of the river with the Parks of the Paseo de La Quinta, the Molinar Channel, and the San Juan Bautista Park. Together, all of them, linked to the riverbed and, along with those that already exist and are better preserved, will form a sort of emerald necklace. Both performances—the creation of a true urban public space on the river's edges and the sequence of green spaces—feed off each other, and it is possible to develop them in phases, whether these are divided into geographical fragments or into layers of intervention. In other words, linking the river to the city, or the city to the river, means, above all, improving the streets that border it and the green spaces that are on its banks.

In cities like Burgos, the hybrid nature of river spaces is evident. We also propose a set of interventions to improve the natural conditions of the river itself, so that it is more alive and healthier and in line with the natural ecological environment.