Crossing the Stream

The aim of the project is to conurbate two towns located in the rural world: Don Benito and Villanueva de la Serena, by imposing a linear park that cut the actual situation, intersecting the existing road infrastructures, providing new communications, reprograming the area and offering healthier lifestyle, becoming the key element of the union.

Crossing the stream is about overlapping flows; the human traffic between the towns: Don Benito and Villanueva de la Serena, the movement of water through the stream, the bird migrations across Extremadura, the circulation of the agrarian production and the flow of time.\nThis overlapping is reached by imposing a line over the terrain, like a tabula rasa, that integrates and improves the existing conditions. In this case, the line is oriented along the stream and generates a transversal union between existing linear elements that connects both towns; the canal, the avenue, the road, and the rural path.\nThere is a clear intention of conurbation between both urban nodes which are in a rural environment. If it were not for the existing linear connections, which host shared infrastructures for both municipalities, the cities would be divided and surrounded by a productive landscape.\nCrossing the stream anticipates the urban future by redefining the fabric between the two metropolises, setting up since the beginning the public and leisure spaces to increase the quality of life around the area, creating a hearth for the new neighbourhood, which consolidates the conurbation between towns and will transform them into the third biggest city in terms of populations in Extremadura.\nConsidering the rural environment around us, also the characteristic of the area which connects and shared services for both cities and the natural conditions of the productive landscape and the pass of the stream; makes sense a proposal of a metropolitan park, to become a key element for the conurbation.