Tangier Promenade

Tangier Promenade

The project for Tangiers Corniche has been undertaken on the basis of the following considerations:

Opening the city towards the sea

Thanks to its unique geographical position, the beauty of its coastline and its excellent climate, Tangiers has become a privileged tourist destination.

The Project for the Corniche complements and strengthens the development of the Port, reactivating the city’s finest location between the Medina and the sea. Our proposal is the continuation of this important project and its connection with the city via a seafront esplanade.

Regeneration of the seafront

The beach is the most extensive vacant urban area and possesses utmost landscape value. Our proposal recognizes each of the different parts of the city along the five kilometers of beach for the purpose of adapting its frontal spaces and favoring them through the affluence of visitors. This will lead to the regeneration of the whole built frontage, improving the social, cultural and economic development of the city.

Salvaging the cultural heritage

Cultural references form part of the architectural language of the seafront esplanade. In the first place, the idiosyncrasy of Tangiers and its vital relationship with the sea. Secondly, the content of the program, such as the creation of a Botanical Garden representing the extraordinary botanical richness of Morocco (seven biomes in three climatological variants: Atlantic, Mediterranean and desert) and the creation of public spaces for sport, etc. All this reflects a desire to convert this space into a place of social interraction for the city and of cultural projection at an international level.

Viability of the building, maintenance and management costs

Building systems of moderate cost and low environmental impact have been proposed, utilizing criteria of sustainable urban space.

A few of the interventions proposed in the project, interventions that are environmentally friendly and at the same time permit savings in building and maintenance costs, are embankments constructed with reinforced earth which bridge the two main topographical levels; consolidation of the dunes, thus protecting plants species from the wind; a system of rainwater collection and storage; a lighting system with LEDs, and so forth.

The division of the seafront esplanade into a number of different sections means that the project is that much more viable due to the possibility of building the whole thing in different phases, while also permitting the independent management of each of the different parts.

Accessibility

The project conforms to criteria of accessibility by permitting access to older or disabled people to the beach and throughout the seafront promenade.

On the beach an area paved in treated wood has been foreseen where there are footbaths, enabling visitors to leave the beach with clean feet and avoiding the loss of sand.

Lastly, all these features—the Botanical garden with the Interpretation Center, the sports area with small buildings for services and the storing of the boats, the bathroom zones in the urban area, the little pavilion for historical interpretation of the Roman ruins, the cafeterias and restaurants on the wharf near Hotel Movenpick—form a different programmatic complex linked to the use of public space in a project unit.