Pedestrian Connection between Barcelona and Montcada i Reixac

The project is located in an interstitial space between towns, on the confluence between the Collserola and Marina mountain ranges, touching the Rec Comtal and Besòs natural spaces.

Connecting the cities

The project’s goal is to arrange and improve the pedestrian path between the Vallbona and Can Sant Joan districts, slightly regularizing the trace and the slope of the existing path to solve the lack of connection between adjacent neighborhoods. The commitment is for soft mobility and a biophillic city: healthier, cleaner, and more accessible for people. The new 175 m long passageway is traced with gentle slopes for pedestrians in a renatured environment, acting as an overlook over the Besos river. The path stitches together the pedestrian urban network with the metropolitan free-space system through one of the shortest possible connections between Barcelona and Montcada.

Defining the standard section and choosing a limited material palette, a complex project is solved in a simple manner, paying attention to the specificity of the place and adapting to each spot in order to maintain existing vegetation and slopes in the most respectful way possible. The esplanade adjacent to the Primer de Maig square is arranged with fruit trees, creating an urban threshold where an insect hotel has been installed.

Respecting nature

The pier like catwalk on stilts maintains the place’s dynamic allowing for the crossing of fauna and maintaining the continuity of water in its natural runoff.

The 2m wide path avoids large land movements maintaining the site’s orography and respecting the existing pine trees.

Managing rainfall

The areas closer to the urban fabric where the orography is favorable allow for a dike like path with a gabion wall, retaining and laminating the surface run off water, favoring the stability of the slope created by disaggregated slate strata and illegal dumps.

In the new urban mobility paradigm, this path must become a more secure, healthier, and comfortable connection between the two municipalities. A space destined to be a leisure path, a metropolitan link, and a natural lookout for everyone.