The ambitious plan by Madrid’s mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón to submerge a section of the M30 ring motorway immediately adjacent to the old city centre within a tunnel was realised within a single term of office. The city undertook infrastructure measures over a total lengthof 43 kilometres, six of them along the banks of the River Manzanares, at a total cost of six billion Euro. West8 together with the local partner MRIO designed the master plan for the new urban area along the reclaimed banks of the river. The infrastructure works associated with the urban motorway were undertaken by a consortium of contractors consisting of Spain’s eight largest construction firms. The Municipality of Madrid decided against realising the project in phases, which resulted in excavation works over a total of 120 hectares. The complex intervention required the construction of temporary bridges and roadways and the implementation of diversions and closures to ensure uninterrupted traffic flow during the construction period. In 2005, an invited international competition was announced. The proposal submitted by West8 for the design of the reclaimed area above the tunnel was the only submission to resolve the urban situation exclusively by means of landscape architecture. The design is founded on the idea »3+30« – a concept which proposes dividing the 80 hectare urban development into a trilogy of initial strategic projects that establish a basic structure which then serves as a solid foundation for a number of further projects, initiated in part by the municipality as well as by private investors and residents. A total of 47 subprojects with a combined total budget of 280 million Euros have since been developed, the most important of which include: the Salón de Pinos, Avenida de Portugal, Huerta de la Partida, Jardines de Puente de Segovia, Jardines de Puente de Toledo, Jardines de la Virgen del Puerto and the Parque de la Arganzuela. In addition to the various squares, boulevards and parks, a family of bridges were realised that improve connections between the urban districts along.

The Madrid Río project is the most important work carried out in the city of Madrid in recent decades and probably one of the most ambitious public space projects built in Europe in recent times. 

In 2003, Madrid City Council decided to bury the section of the city's first major ring road that ran for six kilometres along the banks of the Manzanares River and whose construction 30 years ago meant the disappearance of the links between the city and its river, which became isolated, inaccessible and invisible. 

The team led by Ginés Garrido and made up of the offices of Burgos & Garrido Arquitectos, Porras La Casta, Rubio & A-Sala and West 8 won the international competition held in 2005 to design the public space on the land freed up by the burial of the motorway. The project links the city of Madrid with the valuable external landscapes that surround it, transforming the Manzanares River into a point of connection between the city and its geography. 

Madrid Río covers an area of 150 hectares of green spaces and 6 hectares of civic facilities, sports facilities, interpretation and artistic creation centres, an urban beach, children's play areas, kiosks and cafés. With this intervention, the city of Madrid once again belongs to the geography of the river.