Location: Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife. It has always been an example in the history of tourism in the Canary Islands as a pioneer of tourism development; however, nowadays it is much more of a senior-oriented destination, suffering the consequences of time and in the need of a renewal to get back on track. This project has generated great expectations among the citizens of the island, as well an intense and long social debate that has prompted many questions in the architect: how is it possible to combine the different interests that coexist in the place?
How do we enhance the existing open commercial areas in Puerto de la Cruz at the same time as the development of new commercial zones? How do we respect the historic city and still leave a mark of the XXIst century? Menis designs a new meeting point between the city and the sea, restoring the historical trace of the maritime edge of the city, returning the sea to its former coast line, rebuilding the vernacular landscape.
The project takes the continuous and gradual growth of the historic structure of the city into account, bringing citizens to the sea in an organic and flexible way, incorporating the qualities of the place and including the recovery of a landscape consistent with the vernacular tradition of moulding the coast naturally for its use by man and the conviction of the importance of the public spaces quality.
The project responds to the character of the island of Tenerife and its northern landscapes, with rocky and volcanic maritime shores, small lagoons and black sand beaches, thus creating something new that enriches what already exists and brings the appropriate quality and modernization for a European tourism destination. It does not only maintain the original location of the coastline that favoured the close historical relationship between the sea and the city, but it also strengthens it by pacifying the sea — often rough in the north of the island — without having to create a dead lagoon and mastering therefore the natural Stream of the Atlantic Ocean, building a layer of water with a width that varies between 25 and 40m and creating two new coastlines in the city: one towards the Stream overlooking the Teide and another towards Puerto de la Cruz.
That double coastline is also of great economic value. Taking advantage of the future building of a nearby port, the complete regeneration of the entire coastline in the surroundings of the historical complex is proposed, which, together with a new multifunctional space parallel to that coastline, will achieve a large-scale urban regeneration.
