Location: Málaga

Author: ESTUDIO SEGUÍ in collaboration with other professionals.

Project date: Competition 2012 and Competition 2025.

INTRODUCTION:

The proposal for the development of the Guadalmedina River in Malaga was the subject of an international competition in 2012, organised by Malaga City Council, the Hydrographic Confederation of the Central Government and the Andalusian Regional Government. The main reason for the competition was the question of the treatment of the riverbed in terms of its embankment or landscaping. ESTUDIO SEGUI, in collaboration with a large team of professionals, won the First Prize in this Ideas Competition, the execution of which was subject to the administrative developments of the planning.

However, in the course of these administrative processes, the City Council decided on an intermediate solution in the form of ‘Plazas-Puentes’, which are merely concealed embankments of the river. To this end, a new competition was launched in November 2024 with the aim of establishing the ‘Plazas-Puentes’ solution in contrast to the winning solution of the initial 2012 competition, which was cancelled due to the absence of bidders.

Finally, in 2025, a new competition was held with the same objective of finding a solution for the ‘Plazas-Puentes’, for which ESTUDIO SEGUI presented itself with a testimonial character in order to vindicate the solution of the initial 2012 competition, respecting the Guadalmedina riverbed as a geographical element of the city and its necessary urban integration.

The following documentation serves as an account of a claiming process of ESTUDIO SEGUI, trying to define the geographical and landscape nature of the Gudalmedina River in its urban integration with the city of Malaga, ‘More River, More City’ was our phrase in defence of the Guadalmedina River to avoid its embankment… even if it is concealed like the one that is intended with the ‘Plazas-Puentes’.