The Galician architect María Fandino’s intervention at the Explanada del Horizonte of Portocelo reconditioned a degraded zone of El Rosal, a municipality in the province of Pontevedra. Between the sierra of Groba and the Atlantic Ocean, this part of the territory slopes down from Mount Torroso, leaving behind a landscape of reforested areas, masses of granite interspersed with low shrubs, and coastal plains. The project sought to regenerate the underground ecosystem beneath the rubble left over from the construction, back in the 1970s, of the PO-552 motorway. For this, studies were of the area’s topography, drainage, vegetation, proportions, and general material composition. The project traced stonework terraces bending to meet the sea, with forms that merge with the surroundings. Children’s play areas and outdoor furniture and lighting were placed amid new pavements and walls. The planting scheme took the ocean’s salinity – with the attendant adverse conditions and the acidity of the soil – into account. The objective was to regenerate the highly degraded soil, to eventually see native plant species regrow and revive the landscape.

This work won the CSCAE Architecture Award in 2021, in the Sustainability and Health category.