Comillas Waterfront Promenade
The intervention transforms an area previously occupied by a narrow sidewalk and a large parking lot into a new public space for Comillas. Rather than refurbishing an existing promenade, the project creates a new seafront, reclaiming an exceptional stretch of coastline for pedestrians and incorporating it into the town’s network of public spaces.
The project begins with a condition inherent to every coastal edge: the constant presence of sand. Carried by the wind and the tides, or brought inland by people returning from the beach, sand repeatedly spreads across seafront promenades and is generally regarded as something foreign to the urban environment, requiring continuous removal. This proposal adopts the opposite approach. Instead of resisting this natural process, it embraces it as a design principle, dissolving the boundary between town and beach and creating a space where both continuously exchange matter. Sand is therefore no longer perceived as an unwanted element, but becomes an active component of the promenade itself, integrated into both its permeable paving and its landscape system.
The intervention is organized around two complementary bands. Along the shoreline, a continuous and unobstructed promenade provides an active space for movement, framed by the historic balustrade that forms part of Comillas’ collective memory. Inland, a green strip offers a slower spatial experience, where vegetation, topography and places to rest are integrated into a landscape system inspired by the dune ecosystems of the Cantabrian coast. Rather than reproducing a dune, the project incorporates its underlying logic. Vegetation ceases to play a merely scenic role and becomes environmental infrastructure, mitigating the urban heat island effect, enhancing biodiversity and, over time, creating a sequence of shaded places to pause beneath the tree canopy. In this way, time itself becomes part of the architecture, acknowledging that the landscape will continue to evolve long after construction is complete. Permeable surfaces allow sand to become part of the promenade’s everyday behaviour and enable it to be naturally returned to the system during routine maintenance, reinforcing the continuity between beach and public space.
Gentle landforms incorporate limestone blocks reclaimed from discarded coastal armour stones. These elements shape the terrain while providing informal seating, reinforcing a strategy based on material reuse. They are complemented by individual benches equipped with backrests and armrests, designed according to principles of accessibility and inclusivity while encouraging multiple ways of occupying the public space.
The paving is one of the defining elements of the intervention. Through the combination of concrete pavers with different tones and surface textures, the ground traces a sequence of undulating bands that recall the shifting patterns of wet sand as the tide advances and retreats across the beach. Replacing the former impermeable surfaces with a permeable paving system improves the site’s hydrological performance by promoting natural rainwater infiltration, reducing surface runoff and easing the load on the drainage network. At the same time, the pavement records one of the coastline’s most characteristic phenomena, while photocatalytic pavers contribute to improving air quality by helping reduce atmospheric pollutants.
The project is completed with a series of complementary interventions, including permanent ice cream kiosks that reinterpret the traditional glazed galleries of Cantabrian architecture, the renewal of the beach access, a new terrace beside La Caracola restaurant, a redesigned lighting scheme and the complete reorganization of the parking area. The latter introduces a new pedestrian axis linking the promenade with the former canning factory, now occupied by the Civil Guard headquarters, together with a new roundabout that improves traffic flow and safety.
Beyond the sum of these individual interventions, the project proposes a new way of inhabiting the coastal edge. Sustainable water management, the acceptance of sand as an integral part of the public realm, material reuse, the incorporation of native vegetation and the creation of accessible and inclusive spaces define an intervention that understands landscape, infrastructure and the city as parts of a single living system. In Comillas, the seafront promenade ceases to be the boundary between town and beach and becomes the place where both meet.
