Access to El Confital

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Squares, streets & markets · Year: 2008 · Authors: Carmelo Suárez, Antonio Suárez, Ancor Suárez

El Confital forms a territory of the city of enormous environmental interest due to its character as a coastal area that includes great geomorphological, biological and landscape values.

For a long time this territory, where an extraordinary coastal dynamic occurs due to its splendid bay, was forgotten and neglected, with a worrying phenomenon of shanty towns. Later, there were serious attempts to transform the area through disproportionate tourist development which, fortunately, never materialised.

In 2008 an urban intervention was carried out by architects Carmelo Suárez, Ancor Suárez and Antonio Manuel Suárez who, with exquisite landscape care, acted imaginatively in the area.

This participation consists of three well-differentiated sections: a spectacular access made of corten steel, along the basaltic cliff; a lower beach area, where the path winds through pine wood platforms, granite blocks and porphyry, all resting on an extensive bed of sand; and finally, intelligent and functional connections between the vehicular access and the coastal path, also made of treated wood. The decking not only serves as walkways but also functions as steps from which to admire the spectacle of a sea always in motion. 

We are faced with an imaginative access that fits into the landscape and successfully recovers this spectacular space for citizens' enjoyment.

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