Manuel Palerm in other's View

Over the past centuries, the cities around the world have been growing as much as the geographical environment in which they have been constructed allowed. Several factors were usually involved in deciding where to establish a city besides the geographical specifications.They include the cultural aspect, the spatial characteristics and the size of the community for which the cities were built. From the second half of the 20thcentury, the spread of cities led to the growth of disorderly urban structures in the suburbs. Such structures were mostly constructed against the norms of urban development in terms of cultural and geographical considerations. Nevertheless, this has come into the attention of decision-makers over urban development over the past few decades.In fact, architecture experts believe that any new urban structure must be related to the original structures in one way or another. The development of Barranco de Santos path in Tenerife Island by Palrom and de Nava Arquitectos consulting engineers is a beautiful instance of such an approach. Barranco is a kind of ravine which crosses through San Cristóbal de La Laguna and continues until Santa Cruz bay. During heavy rain falls, the valley is filled or sometimes overflowed. This causes flooding in the historical parts of Santa Cruz. The approach that the organizers of the competition adopted was to create two channels with a large diameter to prevent floods and to fill parts of the valley to function as a bridge. However, Palrem team of designers adopted the approach of continuance and conducted a thorough analysis over the valley as well as the city and presented a solution different from the approach devised by the competition organizers. Instead of denying Barranco, the solution promoted displaying the historical part of the city where the underlying structures from Santa Cruz to Laguna are located. In order to connect the different urban structures with landscapes based on Barranco principles, the symbolic characteristics of the city together with the topographic and environmental features have been revived as well as indigenized in accordance with the disorderly modern structures of the city. The new path is a place for leisure more than being a transport route. Also, the path has been created in such a way that one could hardly notice it as it winds through the ups and down of the valley. The bridges are also no longer a means for passage. Rather, they signify the poetic spirit of Barranco in relation to the environment and are in full harmony with the landscape. The new structures and the pedestrian areas resemble the neighborhoods in a busy harbor city and the overall settings have been arranged in a way to create a classic image in the minds of the visitors. Undoubtedly, the Barranco project is not a proposal with a retrospective approach. Rather, it is to be treated as a contemporary interpretation of the new urban landscape