RIBERA´S PROMENADE IN THE SOUTH COAST OF VINAROZ

The coast line on the Valencia’s community has 474 km. An integrated project, like the one we are proposing will allow a continuous connection, for pedestrians and bicycles of the littoral space from Vinaroz until Pilar de la Horadada. This connection could adopt in it’s different stages adequate morphologies decided by the local government.
As Vinaroz location is towards the north part, it has to adopt the compromise to start this territorial program with a very creative, innovative and audacious way, valuating the quality of their marine space for their inhabitants, visitors and tourists.

The growing activity around the coasts makes necessary that next to the traditional marine promenades of the urban nucleus and the littoral beaches, to organize them to allow their use and enjoyment of the rocky zones and the difficult access zones.
Also, next to this architectural and urban actions it would be needed to make certain actions of an ecological character in order to avoid coast erosion. This could be solved by bulding an artificial breakwater or by building rock walls that protect the natural terrain from the direct erosion of the waves.

The blue footpath intents to assure the continuity in the pedestrian or cycling mobility along the whole coast. It’s a path with contents. A route that advocates the richness of the local territory, this is why it carefully deals with its immediate surroundings, creating a continuous route with resting areas and observation points, which allow the user to take advantage of the most amazing urban and littoral landscapes.

In the south coast of Vinaroz we find stone beaches, rocks and small cliffs that altogether can add up 2.892 meters.

The recognition of this characteristic was the previous step to decide the following actions with the following catalog of elements:

Pedestrian promenade

All along the coast one would be due to be able to circulate very slowly, walking, jogging or in the bike, in a continuous way. The bicycle lane will be of basaltic rock to allow the transpiration of the rained water.

Automobiles and Bicycles parking

In the areas that we can dispose of space, it will be necessary to organize parking zones from the highway, in order to organize the circulation around the beaches. The deck will be made of gravel and sand avoiding the prolongation of asphalt towards the beach.

Access

Seen the interest of people towards the coasts for the human enjoyment and for bathing, it will be needed to regulate and organize the accesses to the gravel beaches and the rocky cliffs with wood stairs that can be easily demountable.

Artificial beach

Based in an hexagonal patron we defined a series of wood platforms that allow the organized enjoyment of the rocky beaches. These platforms encounter themselves in a very flexible way, what permits to adapt themselves to the roughness of the terrain.

Lightning

All along the coast you’ll find a lightning system that will illuminate all the traffic zones. We defined a system of variable heights that allow different intensities in the ambience so that it doesn’t “contaminate” all the coast with a constant light.

Trees

In the “relax areas” a different variety of native trees will be placed: from one side, palm trees (phoenix dactilifera or phoenix whasingtomnia) and in the other side low native bushes like the crithmo limonietea or the hinojo marino.

Playground areas

In the limit between the city and the sea, we can dispose certain zones of games and sports in order to donate another important content to the coast.
Certain ESI (Elemental sports installations) will be installed, where the urban impact will be minimum.

“Chiringuitos”

Certain “Chiringuitos” will be located near the sports facilities, the green zones or the beach accesses; certain with bars and others with snack places (certain with services, certain without). They will be wooden and they will have a second textile cover. They will be mounted in a wooden platform.

THE WOODEN BEACH

In those parts of the coast where rocky beaches are at the sea level, we propose a series of modular wooden platforms that allow to enjoy this artificial beach and to create a new organized bathing area. This concept is very popular in certain Mediterranean countries like Italy and the countries from the old Yugoslavia, and done with the accurate sensibility it doesn’t bother the littoral landscape and it improves the functional qualities of this difficult coast accidents.

This hexagonal platforms incorporate different relieves that permit the users to lay down or sit on top of them.

THE ORGANISED MOBILITY : A BICYCLE LANE AND A PEDESTRIAN WALK.

Next to the traffic lanes, we consider necessary to establish new lanes for the bicycles and for the pedestrians that will permit a more human scale, danger free for the children and young users. This route need to be continuous all along the coast which is basically the whole idea of the project. In addition to the different observation points and the relax areas that will be equipped with the appropriate furnish for each. These lanes will answer as well to a series of vehicles and bicycles parking.
The adequate combination of these spaces will organize the vehicle access to the coast and will generate a powerful and continuous image that can become over time a new territorial identity symbol. This is why we propose a signalization program unique to Vinaroz.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE EROSIONED MARINE FRONT

Vinaroz has a prototype coast of low cliffs, formed by a conglomerate of rocks and compacted earth that can suffer from erosion very easily. The construction of buildings near the coast and the erosion of the same has produced as an effect that certain parts of the coast are completely inaccessible.
In the critic parts where access is very difficult we propose a wooden passage of 3 meters wide, with which we could solve the access problem with a very reduce and ecological cost.

PLAYGROUNDS IN FORNT OF THE SEA

In the superior platforms of the steep ends, we propose certain playgrounds, of a very low maintenance cost that will serve as well as point of encounter for the surrounding low density urbanizations. This zones will have as well palm trees and native vegetation like the crithmo limonietea or the hinojo marino.