A proposal described as "a new esplanade guarded at its four corners by four new clearings: two public buildings and two programmed public spaces" is the winning design for the future Biobío Civic Esplanade in Concepción, Chile.
The project is the result of a competition launched last February by FESUR —the southern subsidiary of the State Railway Company in Chile— for the land that will be freed up once Concepción's railway line is placed underground. "Removing the railway barrier allows us to envision a system of significant, hierarchical public spaces capable of articulating the city's new relationship with the river," the organizers explained in the competition brief.
The future Biobío Civic Esplanade will integrate the current Plaza España, the Regional Government building, Plaza Bicentenario, Parque Bicentenario, and Parque Ribera Norte, as well as the Memorial to the Detained and Disappeared, the Biobío Regional Theater, the 27F Memorial, and Chile's second Museum of Memory, whose construction was recently postponed.
Discover the winning projects below, according to the competition's official announcement:
First Place: Álvaro Parraguez + Óscar Luengo
Collaborators: Marcos Muñoz, Juan Carlos Arena
Students: Ignacia Fuenzalida, Beatriz Harriet, Francisca Feliú
Second Place: Martín Holmes
Collaborators: Jonathan Holmes, Andrés Battle, Roberto Holmes
Student: César Balcázar
Third Place: Cristián Berríos
Collaborators: Paz González, Simón Guzmán, Marco Aravena, Leonor Ríos, Iván Uribe, Ignacio Rojas, Cristian Dippel
Honorable Mention: Carlos Fernández + Emanuel Astete
Honorable Mention: Nicolás Cruz Tagle
Via FESUR.
This article was written by Nicolás Valencia. The translation is powered by AI.
