Bosque Metropolitano · Spain
· Urban, Sustainability
Madrid Ciudad Forestal
The confluence of rivers and streams creates a strategic socio-environmental territory for the settlement and development of societies, first agricultural and today more complex.
This is the case in this site of the Bosque Metropolitano project. The soil has a high geological value and served for decades as Madrid’s quarry for clay and stone. The area’s uses and meanings are today being reinvented thanks to this ambitious, metropolitan project for the creation of a green infrastructure to the south-east of Madrid’s center.
The project integrates the Manzanares and Jarama river waterways with the protected areas of the Regional Park of the Southeast and those of the Cuenca Alta of the Manzanares. It will be complemented by an urban green infrastructure that passes through the Gran Vía Verde, the green streets, the Camino Real, a new Cañada Real duplicating the existing one, and the interior urban connection with Madrid’s Retiro Park.
This green infrastructure proposal considers the site’s current environmental conditions (soils heavy in gypsum and clay and a scarcity of surface water) and its socio-cultural value, established over centuries. Finally, it has taken into consideration Climate Change, the concentrated distribution of precipitation, the increased frequency of heat waves and greater soil erosion.
