The rearrangement intends to enhance pedestrian access to the coast of Martiánez and to the Artificial Lake -a water complex design by renowned artist Cesar Manrique- by means of expanding the walking areas at the expense of car traffic. For this purpose the avenue is laid out as a single platform of paving for the use of pedestrians, with a zone for pedestrians-only and a zone with time controlled access for service vehicles. The cutting of basalt – material chosen for paving- is structured according to different rhythms and different orders, from arbitrary quartering to lattice geometries.
The main objective of the intervention is to obtain free space in a very clogged area, so the design strategy is a question of removing more than adding. The paving of the pedestrians-only zone is solved with irregularly straight cut basalt, interspersing sporadically white concrete figures inspired by the archipelago’s indigenous petroglyphs, seeking dialogue with the organic forms used by Cesar Manrique at the design of the lake. These forms are either flush on the pavement or extruded to become benches. To smooth the transition between the urban edge and the shore stands a row of canary palm trees of large size, which redefine the urban facade towards the sea. At night a grid of lighting points embedded on the pavement manifest the geometry of this area of Puerto de la Cruz, establishing a visual connection with the nocturnal spider-net of lights that one can see in the distant views of the north coast of Tenerife.