Location: Avenida del Mediterráneo. Benidorm, Alicante. Guía Consultores SL * ICCP: Miguel Ángel Crespo * During the Project phase, Esteyco participated with Architect A. Estany. Architect: Joaquín Alvado Bañon Year: 2020 Phase I Surface Area: 26,720 m2 Paving: Benidorm Paver 25x10x8cm by Breinco. Paving manufacturing technology: FluxCast®
The Redevelopment of Avenida del Mediterráneo in Benidorm
The project consists of the comprehensive redevelopment of the main avenue in Benidorm and its adjacent streets and squares. The total surface area of the intervention is 72,780 m2. From the competition stage, the objective was set to reverse the vehicle-based city concept and transform it into an integrated urban planning model; to achieve this, an Urban Lounge was designed, creating a continuous space for citizens. Benidorm is a unique city, designed as a compact city with highly sustainable planning; the project aims to enhance this quality, integrating private activity with public space while encouraging citizen participation.
The proposed project aims to:
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- Reclaim public space as a place for living and connection. The avenue ceases to be a transit route for vehicles and instead links public spaces that enhance and organize the urban scene. The transformation of this iconic roadway into a space for social connection stems from Benidorm’s Citizen Participation bodies and the development of the Sustainable and Integrated Urban Development Strategy (EDUSI).
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The available spaces are distributed and equipped according to the function they will serve in the new urban area. This distribution caters to the different permitted modes of mobility, as well as the visual integration of the complex with the existing private urban landscape.
- The project proposes to recover the imagery of the Mediterranean Sea in terms of colors, atmospheres, and sensations. To achieve this, the pedestrian paving is designed with a unique HPC finish using a three-tone piece in white, black, and electric blue. The designed layout creates a transition of tones from the edges of the roadway (black) toward the side facades (white), giving a sense of greater to lesser intensity of gray. The entire ensemble is speckled with the intense blue of the third piece, which stands out against the general neutral colors.
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Enhancing tree species while considering the city as an essential environmental and landscape entity. Plant species have been defined with the objective of conserving and strengthening the local ecosystem, striving to preserve the maximum number of existing plane trees and introduce native plantings from the city’s outskirts.
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The city is immersed in a process of urban innovation and transformation. One of the main axes of this process is smart tourism and generating comprehensive digitization for citizen transparency. Within the project, at its most unique point—the confluence of the Avenue with Plaza de la Hispanidad—a “Tecno-hito” (technological milestone) is situated: a unique 20-meter-high structure covered with LED panels, which will turn it into a technological reference point for information, participation, and outdoor citizen activities in the heart of the pedestrian area.
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Urban Pavement Design
At Breinco, we promote the professional company-technician relationship through design. We place our experience and infrastructure at your disposal for the development of products and construction systems designed by the technician with the objective of improving performance, compositional possibilities, formats, textures, and colors. We make ideas viable and exchange knowledge. We work with external teams of designers, architects, and engineers with a clear commitment to sustainability and respect for the environment.
In the remodeling of Avenida del Mediterráneo, the challenge was the manufacturing of a paver with a surface texture designed by architect Joaquín Alvado Bañón and civil engineer Miguel Ángel Crespo, where the color and relief of the pavement took center stage. The design seeks to achieve images that give volume to the ensemble. The pattern allows water to be retained in drop-shaped wavy forms, which, when wet, produce reflections depending on the incidence of light. These reflections allow images of the trees and the Mediterranean sky to be embedded in the pavement.
Breinco has made this design viable and developed a paver with geometric dimensions of 25×10 cm, 8 cm thick, without spacers, without bevels, in Black, White & Blue colors. It is manufactured with FluxCast® technology using granitic aggregates that provide high durability performance. The pigments we use for coloring are generally iron oxides (the blue color is cobalt blue), which guarantee color resistance to ultraviolet rays and weather conditions. Furthermore, they are totally safe for the environment. The color remains stable over the years.
In the remodeling of Avenida del Mediterráneo, the desired image is that of the surface of the Mediterranean Sea with its sparkles and movements. The idea of the project is to achieve a dynamic design that changes with grazing light over time. The wavy forms are supplemented into an overall pattern, allowing them to be laid randomly since the pieces fit together in any arrangement.
