The Ecological Restoration of a Post-Industrial Area
An ecological restoration project in a formerly industrial area that provides the Cabo Llanos neighborhood of Santa Cruz de Tenerife with its first green public space. This banana trees and endemic plants garden that surrounds a former oil tank, reused as a cultural space since 1997, recalls the agricultural landscape prior to industrialization, staging the city as a place of coexistence for diverse cultures and sensibilities that shape the identity of the city.
Local
Spain
Canary Islands > Tenerife island > city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-03-15
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): Fernando Menis slpu Type of organisation: For-profit company First name of representative: Fernando Last name of representative: Martín Menis Gender: Male Nationality: Spain Function: Architect Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Calle Puerta Canseco, 35, 2ºB Town: Santa Cruz de Tenerife Postal code: 38003 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 922 28 88 38 E-mail:comunicacion@menis.es Website:https://menis.es
Name of the organisation(s): Asociación Amigos del Tanque Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Dulce Xerach Last name of representative: Pérez López Gender: Female Nationality: Spain Function: President Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Calle Capitán Gómez Landero, 19 Town: Santa Cruz de Tenerife Postal code: 38006 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 922 28 00 38 E-mail:lasestacioneseneltanque@gmail.com Website:https://www.facebook.com/amigosdeltanque
Name of the organisation(s): Viceconsejería de Cultura y Patrimonio Cultural - Consejería de Educación, Universidades, Cultura y Deportes Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Juan Last name of representative: Márquez Fandiño Gender: Male Nationality: Spain Function: Viceconsejero Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Calle Comodoro Rolín, 2 Planta 1ª Town: Santa Cruz de Tenerife Postal code: 38071 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 922 92 24 58 E-mail:vccp.eucd@gobiernodecanarias.org Website:https://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/eucd/consejeria/organigrama/Ficha_Unidad/?uo=41974
URL:https://www.instagram.com/menisarquitectos Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @menisarquitectos #FernandoMenis #MenisArquitectos #EspacioCulturalElTanque #JardinElTanque
Completed in 2022, El Tanque Garden is the culmination of a 25 years citizen struggle for the preservation and adaptive reuse of a former oil deposit in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and the rehabilitation of its setting. What used to be contaminated land around a former refinery tank is now an urban green oasis embracing the industrial heritage relic where diverse groups gather, relax, learn and play.
Spain's first refinery, built in 1929 by CEPSA, on the coast of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, is representative for the industrial history of the Canary Islands and its huge oil tanks have been a part of the city's geography since then. In 1995, faced with the imminent dismantling of the refinery, the Association Amigos del Tanque, advocated keeping one of its large containers and gathered support around this non-profit initiative. As a member of this activists group, the architect Fernando Menis lead the rehabilitation and adaptation of the tank 69 to cultural uses, completed in 1997, and gave support until El Tanque was listed as protected cultural heritage in 2014. Further on, the Association pushed for building a garden around El Tanque and got the Canary Islands Government's support who called a public design contest and financed the works of the garden.
El Tanque Garden is an ecological restoration project in a formerly industrial area that provides the Cabo Llanos neighborhood with its first green public space, and that could be an example for placemaking and renaturing other sites in the Canary Islands. A biodiverse garden with over 700 banana trees and native plants sits now on what used to be contaminated land, surrounding the industrial relic to recall the agricultural landscape prior to industrialization and to stage the city as a place of coexistence for the diverse eras, cultures and sensibilities that have shaped its identity.
Placemaking
Urban activism
Renaturing
Biodiversity
Reuse
El Tanque Garden pursued responding to environmental, social and economic sustainability concerns thus the results achieved are transversal:
> Reactivates an underused real estate asset of the city and makes it available to locals and visitors
> Diversifies social uses in an urban monoculture area, made up of tower blocks and shopping centers, by making place to its first green public space
> Encourages cultural tourism and more diverse attendees at the Espacio Cultural's events
> Accelerates the decontamination of the formerly industrial lands with nature-based solutions
> Biodiversity is restored thanks to planting over 700 trees and species of native flora
> Saves on maintenance expense: only local, well adapted species have been used that require minimum maintenance expense.
> Saves on water thanks to supplying the watering with recycled water.
> Saves on electricity thanks to its LED lighting.
> Avoids the light pollution of the sky thanks to the low orientation of the lamps.
> Upcycles waste: discarded divers' oxygen bottles and other metal pieces were used to make the lighting and furniture.
The El Tanque Garden recreates a landscape of banana plantations crossed by flowing lava to evoke the agricultural activity that preceded the CEPSA refinery. Users are invited to reflect on the evolution of the place and its multilayered history: as time passes, the exuberant subtropical vegetation colonizes the industrial relic, framing its heavy presence and restoring the memory of the agricultural past. The project aimed at emphasizing a type of beauty going deeper than the aesthetic value, that comes from direct interaction between humans and nature challenging them to reinhabit a space, rebuild a sense of belonging and establish a dialogue between past and present through the remains in the collective memory and envision a new optimistic future.
The large array of species including flamboyants, palms, banana trees, Monstera, Ficus, shrubs and aromatic plants, make up a diverse, sensorial garden full of colors, aromas and textures. Some cypresses will wrap a corner of the iron structure of the Tank in green; they will reach 20 m high and 60 cm wide so they will be perceived like the guardians of the place and will bring a certain monumentality to the entire compound.
Acting as a refuge in an overwhelmingly urban area, the Garden is also an opportunity to connect with nature and observe its processes. Children easily relate to the yellow recycled lamps that remind them the Minions and people are happy to pick themselves some bananas from the trees, while the didactic aspects are further enhanced by the activities programmed here around themes such as the local flora, the seasons, the history of the city, architecture and artistic creation.
The Garden is meant to disseminate the values of reuse, recycling and environmental care by embodying them and making them tangible, while the lush vegetation in a previously decrepit and polluted site should speak to everyone about the need to always rely on nature in our evolution as a species and society.
The El Tanque Garden is a public space, which can be enjoyed freely and free of charge by anyone. It provides equal opportunities for the inhabitants of the Cabo Llano neighbourhood as it guarantees the access to nature for people living in a heavy urban area, which completely lacked public green areas before the Garden was built. (Article in local media: https://bit.ly/3RoIPY7)
In terms of accessibility, the Garden (as well as the Cultural Space) is free of obstacles to mobility: located on a sloping plot, its access is resolved through an old ferry bridge that had been abandoned in the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and has been recycled as an access ramp to the site. Installed here since the rehabilitation of the former tank carried out in 1997, its usability has been improved now and adapted to current accessibility requirements. Additionally, another ramp, with a gentler slope, through which both pedestrians and vehicles can access, has been added.
The Garden includes other elements that make everyone’s time here enjoyable, safe, comfortable, inclusive and healthy: among the seatings there are some elevated, more appropriate for elder people who cannot bend easily and, some of them are under the trees to provide protection from the sun. The paths among the banana trees facilitate their observation and enjoyment, as well as picking their fruits.
Moreover, the Garden is part of the El Tanque Cultural Space compound, administered by the Government of the Canary Islands. The art spaces managed by this public authority have among their objectives collaboration and direct contact with their closest artistic context, as well as developing a program with a significant degree of participation of and cooperation with civil society. It is for this reason that exhibitions and activities proposals to be developed in the Garden can be submitted anytime by using the form enabled on the institution's website (Permanent open call: http://bit.ly/3XTacMC).
Citizens have been key in achieving this public garden that is set on the former CEPSA refinery's plot and sorrounds one of its oil tanks repurposed as a cultural space since 1997. At a time when the urban growth of Santa Cruz de Tenerife had already turned the industrial zone occupied by the refinery into a residential neighborhood, the conservation of the tank was a story of citizens activism from 1997 to 2006 when, for the first time, it was recognized in the city's urban planning documents. Faced with the imminent dismantling, in 1995, a group of people promoted the idea of keeping one of its large containers and gathered support around this non-profit initiative, formalized later as the Association Amigos del Tanque. A member of this activist group, the architect Fernando Menis lead pro bono the adaptation of the Tank to cultural uses, in 1997, and gave technical expertise to the Association until the tank was listed as protected cultural heritage, in 2014. (http://bit.ly/3WRVRP3)
However, the surroundings of the Tank have been left almost abandoned for two decades, as it has happened with other public spaces in the same neighborhood, born after the liquidation of the refinery. Thus, the Association went one step further and advocated planting a garden around: not only had they managed to leave a trace of the industrial history of Santa Cruz, but they planned to recover another layer, the agricultural history, disappeared from the city at the beginning of the 20th century. The Association achieved support from the Government of the Canary Islands, which assumed the cost of making place to the first green public space in the Cabo Llanos neighborhood and called a public design contest.
This public garden would not exist today if it were not for the resistance movement that the Association maintained over two decades and the process demonstrates that a city is not made only by politicians, urban planners and architects, but also by committed citizens.
The Garden as well as the El Tanque Cultural Space were born thanks to a grassroots movement in the Cabo Llano neighborhood and the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, formalized later as the Association Amigos del Tanque. The Association fought and achieved to bring the project from local to regional level:
> preserve and reuse an old oil tank as an art space of the city (temporary at the beginning)
> have it listed alongside its setting as protected cultural heritage (since 2014) by the Government of the Canary Islands and included in the art spaces managed by this regional public authority;
> have its degraded setting regenerated with a green area. The Association submitted the idea to the Government who called a public design competition and financed the works.
On the other hand, the financing of the works of the El Tanque Garden has been possible thanks to the "1.5% Cultural" program of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda of Spain, which grants, on a competitive basis, aid to finance works of conservation or enrichment of buildings that integrate the Spanish historical heritage. Thus, what had started in a small local community ended up being relevant at a national scale.
The Association brings together and transmits with a single voice knowledge, experiences and diverse opinions since among its members there are simple residents, as well as local artists, designers, journalists, lawyers, etc. However, the three main disciplines that have made the Garden and the cultural space it houses possible are:
> Law: The El Tanque Garden and the cultural space it contains exist thanks to the activism of the Association Amigos del Tanque, which, under the presidency of the lawyer Dulce Xerach Pérez, requested and defended the protection of the Cultural Space and its surroundings as a cultural heritage asset (argumentation included in Xerach's PhD thesis: https://bit.ly/3l53Gnv). When trying to "save" the former oil tank, the Association requested support from the local architect Fernando Menis to prove its singularity and to propose an adaptive reuse design for it and relied on his expertise until getting the legal protection of the site as cultural heritage, in 2014.
> History: The project for the regeneration of the environment of the El Tanque Cultural Space worked with a previous investigation on this area, carried out by the historian Alejandro Hernández. Rguez. de León: https://bit.ly/3HRcq9D
> Architecture and Landscape Design, carried out by the winner of the public design contest, architect Fernando Menis, who took in consideration the historical research as well as the ideas and proposals of the Association Amigos del Tanque besides the competition brief. (https://bit.ly/40rUlpN)
El Tanque Garden has been completed recently (https://bit.ly/3HuHtGQ), but some of its results and impacts can already be appreciated:
> El Tanque Garden is an ecological restoration process of a formerly industrial oil refinery site, which can be observed and enjoyed in real time. What used to be a contaminated abandoned and underused land in the city until 2022, is already a leafy garden that will only get better as times passes and biodiversity regains the site, offering already well-being, a healthy environment and a place for social cohesion in the city.
> It provides the Cabo Llanos neighborhood the capital of the Tenerife island with its first green public space. In this urban oasis in a harsh urban area, diverse groups of people reconnect with nature; they can simply rest or walk in nature, escape from the heavy traffic and listen to the sound of the insects and birds, breathe a cleaner air, smell the flowers, pick some bananas or they can visit the art exhibitions in the Espacio and participate at the weekly activities in the Garden.
> Citizens have been already offered the opportunity to take part at free access themed activities around nature, seasons, biodiversity and environmental care. Additionally, art exhibitions reflecting on landscape and nature have been programmed in the future. Example: LAS ESTACIONES EN EL TANQUE (http://bit.ly/3X0M4X4, https://bit.ly/3HVcvt1, https://bit.ly/3Y1uIL0) is a free access educational activity, that raises awareness of the values of the site, which unfolds as weekend themed workshops for children to delve into the world of art and nature, fostering their interest in artistic creation and environmental care such as: a census of flora and fauna, objects, textures and sounds; tales and stories in the garden; taking care of the plants etc.
> Dissemination: the project has already impacted in the national and international media specialized in art, architecture and design such as Domus, Designboom, Metalocus etc.
The main innovation of the Jardín El Tanque project is the approach itself: it consists of having rescued a disused, decadent and polluted place and giving it back value -ecological, social, cultural, economic- through an intervention that is based on channeling the force of nature itself. His innovation is about creating an opportunity for nature so that nature, in turn, creates opportunities for the city and its inhabitants. The unique architectural and landscape design is added, as well as the unique furniture or lighting elements, made with recycled scrap elements.
In addition, the social process that lead to the current Jardín del Tanque, is innovative, unprecedented in the cultural history of the Canary Islands as demonstrated by a study carried out in 2021 (http://bit.ly/3JABxPl). The social movement that was created to rescue, protect and regenerate the site where the El Tanque Cultural Space and Garden are located is the first visible social movement in defense of industrial heritage in the Canary Islands. Moreover, it has always been led by women, the following three being the ones who at certain times of this long lasting process have held the presidency of the Association Los Amigos del Tanque: Dodes Camalich, Pura Márquez and Dulce Xerach Pérez.
The project has, on the one hand, the aspect of social struggle to rescue and regenerate the site, and on the other hand, the garden design project.
The idea of the Garden as well as the El Tanque Cultural Space were born thanks to a grassroots movement in the Cabo Llano neighborhood and the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, formalized later as the Association Amigos del Tanque. The Association fought and achieved to bring the project from local to regional level, using the legal tools available in defense of industrial heritage until it was granted its protection as a protected heritage, in 2014 and inclusion in the circuit of art spaces of the Government of the Canary Islands. It did so through requests to the public administration, manifestos, open letters and articles in the press as well as through actions on the spot.
The architectural project pursues the ecological restoration of the site and, to this purpose, after an investigation on the activity that existed in the place before its industrialization, it was decided to plant an orchard of banana trees and local plants, typical of the coast of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, naturally adapted and resilient. and
El Tanque Garden's experience and outcome may be a reference for bottom-up actions that pursue not only more green in cities, but public green spaces with more functions, too - spaces for aggregation, recreation, learning, and even food production. It is the result of a history of civil activism that covers more than 20 years, in which citizens had to deal with different political and public institutions, but which achieves its goals, including a garden, the first in the neighborhood. It is an experience that can be inspiring for other groups that are currently fighting in cities to renaturalise them or to have urban gardens.
Furthermore, El Tanque Garden addresses the question of the post industrial landscapes in the Canary Islands, but also in other parts of the world. It is an example - at a small scale - of how we could treat them, what uses we could give them, how we could address their decontamination. Initiatives such as Tank Shanghai (https://bit.ly/3HwoHz0) or the New York's Brooklyn's Waterfront decommissioned tanks (http://bit.ly/40kVD69), were inspired by El Tanque's evolution.
In the global context of the climate emergency and the concentration of the population in urban areas, it is imperative to propose solutions that may help to increase the sustainability of urban livelihoods.
El Tanque Garden can be a reference for bottom-up actions that pursue not only more green in cities, but public green spaces with more functions, too - spaces for aggregation, recreation, learning, and even food production - because this site is more than a green public space:
> It supports recovering the relationship with nature by the simple fact it exists in the city and let people enjoy it, observe and feel natural events.
> It is a climate refuge for individuals and groups in the progressively hotter summer days and in the more and more polluted urban daily routine
> It is a plantation of fruit trees and its fruit can be picked by the people. Symbolically, this garden shows it's possible growing our food in the cities
> It advocates degrowth and circularity by showing how reused land and materials add value to our cities and life.
Furthermore, El Tanque Garden addresses the question of the post industrial landscapes in the Canary Islands, but also in other parts of the world. It is an example - at a small scale - of how we could treat them, what uses we could give them, how we could address their decontamination.
