The site consists of three clearly differentiated zones with different morphological and topographical features. In the South, the consolidated Numancia district rises up to San Miguel Hill, where the brief calls for guidelines to improve the district without demolitions. To the north, Tafalera Hill is a topographic landmark that has to be recovered with landscaping and environmental initiatives. Between the two hills, there is a valley currently occupied by the Tafalera district, a fringe settlement that the municipal council has decided to demolish.
These three situations require different responses. In the Numancia district no demolitions are allowed, forcing us to propose recovery strategies such as the insertion of tertiary facilities and in-fill apartment dwellings as catalyzers for a gradual transformation. For Tafalera Hill we propose a new town park and an area for 47 terraced dwellings in direct contact with the park (slope-houses). For the valley, we propose a boulevard that connects the consolidated urban area in the facilities to the east (Calle Santa Bárbara, schools, and old people’s home) to Vinalopó Park, further west. This boulevard integrates trees, recreation zones and 53 dwellings in four and five-story mini-blocks (tower-houses). A network of pedestrian paths links the three zones to the old district of Elda in order to permit total accessibility and contribute to the social regeneration of the site.
This proposal thus provides three types of settings, each one with a different sort of housing. The new dwellings will facilitate the rehousing operation and avoid the need for the dispersal of the families that have spent all their lives in Tafalera. The three proposed types of environments will facilitate different lifestyles and social diversification in a zone which has hitherto been a ghetto for the more marginalized social strata.
