Riverbed revival: Set in the neglected carcass of a dried up riverbed, this new public park is full of subtle and inventive new landscape devices that respond to the site's history.

Fontsanta Park is a conglomeration of imaginative public spaces grafted on to the dried-up riverbed of the former Fontsanta River. The riverbed separates an industrial area from a recently developed residential quarter on the outskirts of Barcelona. Such sites are considered unsuitable for urbanization and instead are regarded as green belts, with the potential for development as public parks and open space. Barcelona's civic authorities have an enviable record of putting neglected land to good use (see for instance, Miralles and Tagliabue's Parc de Las Colores; AR January 2002) and in 1994, held a competition for proposals to transform the site into a park. This was won by Manuel Ruisanchez and since then, the project has been gradually implemented in stages, finishing in 2000.

Prior to its redevelopment, the riverbed had been used as a rubbish tip generating an irregular, undulating topography with changes in level of up to 30m. The project advocates two basic kinds of intervention: manmade terraces contained by gabion construction address the challenges of the terrain and create space for intensive use, while newly planted tracts of maple and ash will develop into mysterious bosky glades. In the western part of the park, the gabion terraces enclose public sports fields. To the east, a zig-zag pathway traces the course of the original riverbed.

The rubbish tips have been stabilized by unloading earth over the sides of the ravine to form wedge-like slopes, recalling the tumbling debris. The analogy is emphasized by massed planting that also seems to cascade down the slopes, accumulating at the bottom following the gullies created by heavy rainfall. Ravines are typically places of extreme climate conditions, ranging from protracted periods of drought and intense sunlight, to high flooding and levels of humidity. The choice of elm, gorse and mimosa reflects these extremes and reinforces the vegetation already present. Willow, olives and tamarind are also introduced as all are species that thrive on riverbanks. Robinia and vines are well adapted to embankment settings and large areas of grass also hold the soil in place to prevent further erosion of the surroundings.

Guided by principles of restoration, but also full of subtle new interventions, Ruisanchez's scheme recalls and reconstructs the various incarnations of the site, transforming a disregarded urban wasteland into a distinctive new public park.