The new urban park of the city is located in the Sants neighborhood, on the tracks shared by the train and metro line 1. Popularly known as “El Calaix”, the baptized as Gardens of Rambla de Sants is the largest landscaping work in Barcelona since the time of El Forum.
This park, by architects Sergi Godia, Ana Molino and J.A. Acebillo, with its reasonable resemblance to the well-known High Line Park in New York, due to the railway environment in which it is located and its elevated position with respect to the urban fabric, aims to be recognized as an example of good practices both in urban regeneration processes and in the application of sustainable gardening criteria.
In the past, the tracks ran on the surface, at street level, in a section of more than 800 meters from Sants Street to the municipal boundary of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. This railway axis generated a breach in urban connectivity between the north and south of the neighborhood of the well-known train station. To remedy this fact and allow linking the urban fabric on both sides of the tracks, it was decided to build a concrete cover between 10 and 14 meters high along this section, to cover the tracks, creating a landscaped and recreational area of more than 2 hectares, which in addition to landscaped spaces has children’s areas and various structures that support photovoltaic panels that serve to provide light and shade.
The urbanization process of this space began in 2012, once the construction of the box that covers the tracks and the underpasses that connect both sides was completed. The second phase of the work consisted of creating the park on the deck and urbanizing the lower spaces.
The plant design of the landscaped deck differentiates the route on the sea side and on the mountain side, through different species, textures and chromatic combinations. Various varieties of trees have been planted, predominantly tipuanas, sophoras and Chinese soapberries. And more specifically false pepper trees and erythrinas have been planted. A pedagogical signage has also been arranged on the different species present along the park.
In total, at the end of the work, more than 160 trees, 665 linear meters of climbing plants and about 85,000 units of shrub and groundcover plants have been planted. Among the various plant species of the park, many of the sustainable gardening plants cultivated at Viveros Sala Graupera stand out.
In the first section of this new park we can highlight Bulbine frutescens associated with Rosa ‘Bet Figueras’ that capture the attention of visitors with their varied shades of yellow present throughout almost the entire year, and located near groupings of glaucous green plants, contrast with *Teucrium fruticans*** ‘Azureum’** accompanied by lavenders and santolinas.
In the intermediate section Lantana montevidensis stands out, used to cover rectangular planters, with this groundcover species, among the corten steel and glass pergolas.
While in the last section, in addition to some species such as Dietes grandiflora, salvias or *Abelia x grandiflora*** ‘Prostrata’**, reaching L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, in the area of the Mirador de las Vías, a space called the “Didactic Garden” has been structured where a selection of the natural plants that existed in the city’s plain, prior to the urbanization of the Ensanche, is shown, such as rockroses, cerrillo, viburnum or strawberry tree, organized in lower planters and crossed by paths paved with river boulders.
Images: M. Galante