The so-called ‘Palmeral de las Sorpresas’ (palm grove of surprises) restores the relationship between Málaga and the sea. The port, which has gone through periods of growth and stagnation, has marked the history of the city since its foundation by the Phoenicians. Its industrial use over the last century provoked a total separation from the urban fabric, so the rise of the tourism sector urged to undertake actions, since the 1990s, to turn this part of the city into a new civic space. Facing the Mediterranean, this space takes the form of an isotropic pattern of palm trees, a pergola parallel to the sea.

The traditional Arab garden type, with an essentially domestic character, was discarded in favor of the Mediterranean park type, which took form inspired by the Mediterranean plantations, where the palm trees, separated three meters from one another, are the elements that structure farmlands in 20x20-meter squares. The dimension of these squares stems from millennarian experience, because it generates a microclimate to protect from sun and wind, necessary for crops to grow in a harsh climate such as that of northern Africa. The Palmeral of Elche provided proof of why this was a good choice, and the fields have thus become the scenic spaces for the variety of uses a park demands without giving up its unitary character. In contrast with the large size of the palm, each precinct is conceived as a unique garden, trying to attain a human scale with furnishings and plants of different sizes, as well as a certain degree of variation through text precinct is conceived as a unique garden, trying to attain a human scale with furnishings and plants of different sizes, as well as a certain degree of variation through textures, flowering periods, scents and colors.

For its part, the pergola is the element that unifies the whole waterfront, receiving passengers arriving by sea and providing strollers with shade. It is a metallic box beam of 1.60 meters in height and varying width, between 0.55 and 1.15 meters, which runs along a sinuous 400-meter stretch with only 16 supports placed along two parallel lines. The beam runs at a height of 11 meters, and from it hangs 265 shading pieces of white reinforced concrete.

The museums and marine terminal are part of the promenade: three translucent glass boxes that, seeking an unobtrusive volumetry, are placed perpendicular to the dock and rise on pilots with open-plan ground floors, thus ensuring maximum permeability.  

Team:

Architects: Junquera Arquitectos

Other participants: Miguel Ángel Blanca, Elena Pascual, Daniel Álvarez, Tomas Hosie, Gabriel Avalos, Iban Jaén, Ariana Sarabia, Maria Vallier, Santiago Marín

Landscape: Bet Figueras

Engineering consulting: NB35

Building services consulting: Grupo JG

Photographer: Jesús Granada

Materials used:

Exterior furniture: Escofet

Ligthing: Iguzzini