Garraf Landfill Restoration

The landscape restoration of this landfill combines in a single operation the two basic objectives that this type of intervention requires: solving a complex technical problem and defining a new landscape. Even so, the proposal incorporates a third objective by proposing this site as a new free access space in the Garraf Natural Park.

The Vall d’en Joan deposit is located in the Garraf Natural Park within the municipalities of Begues and Gavá in the Baix Llobregat region.

The beginning of the exploitation of the deposit dates from the year 1974 with the dumping since then of most of the urban waste of Barcelona and the municipalities of its metropolitan area. At present, it occupies an area of ​​60 hectares of which 20 hectares have already been restored from the closure and restoration project presented here.

The closure and restoration project has been developed from a landscape idea: to create a landscape of agricultural terraces that unifies the whole complex. The reference to the agricultural world offered us three important advantages:

• In other parts of the Garraf massif there are cultivated valleys, so transforming the deposit into an agricultural landscape implied integrating it with the same instruments that man has already used.
• The agricultural techniques of topographic modification, water control, and crop development had many similarities with the technical needs that had to be resolved in the clause and restoration of this deposit.
• The personal fascination for the images that agriculture has created on our territories leads us to think on many occasions that their use is the best solution for the planning of new places.

The vegetation implantation process is carried out from highly resistant native species, with few water needs and adapted to the environment. The plantation is organized into plant structures linked to the topographic shape of the terraces –fields, slopes, drains, and roads– using autochthonous legume crops, various tree and shrub species, and species typical of the Mediterranean maquis.

The formalization of the various terraces has made it possible to establish a path that will run through the entire restored space, crossing the different fields and going up through the various terraces. This path allows you to visit the place connecting in its upper part with a landscape itinerary of the Garraf Natural Park. At the same time, this road allows the passage of the necessary maintenance vehicles.