Walking along Avenida de las Delicias towards south, where the bridge Los Remedios crosses the urban branch of the Guadalquivir River, suddenly a large, empty surface appears. It is placed between the level of the river and the level of the city, more or less at a height of about 5 metres above the water surface. This former pier is about 600 metres long and between 60 to 100 metres in depth. It is the only area in the city, where someone can experience the river that close. During Sevilla’s hot summer nights, this is the freshest place in the city. Around it, there is just water, the retaining walls, which separate the city from the river, as well as islands of pioneer plants here and there. Above, at city level, the urban park Jardin de las Delicias accompanies the former pier along Avenida de las Delicias. This large urban park was the area where the World Expo of 1929 took place. Today its lush vegetation and the remaining pavilions of the Expo are the place, where, during the night, people meet, talk, dance tango and recover from the heat of the day.

The space of the surface does not want to have a building placed on it, more or less like a cake on a table. Instead, the aim should be to exacerbate its existing qualities, with other words to consider the whole surface a piece of architecture and to invent a structure in scale of it. The site wants to seduce through the infinite possibilities present through it. It would like to enter a dialogue with its immediate context and the city as a whole, with the jardin de las delicias, the avenida de las delicias and all the public spaces around it, and this during the day and at night. As counterpart to this desired exchange, it brings to the table the different spaces it is made of: the road, the trench, the surface above and below. These different spaces all have their very own qualities and potentials. The smoothness of the surface is an opportunity for the most varied events to take place.

Why not letting the water design? The element of water, in its different forms, can read and write this place. Since water can be very subtle in the way it acts, an intervention of 1% has the potential of producing an architecture of 100%. 1% is enough for the water to be activated. As a result, a project with minimal changes to the site becomes possible. A minimal tilt of the surface in its transversal direction and a system for water-collection in the form of a very simple notation along its longitudinal direction is implemented. The rest of the surface is cleaned and covered with a white stone. Why not with marble? Containers are placed under the surface in different vertical positions. These containers collect the surface water and contain also the most varied aquatic species. Instead of a fish tank, you would make a water tank with fish. The grammar of the space below the surface would be dictated by the place and the water. There would be a diversity of different containers, a light, wooden surface inclined by 1%, different families of pillars, a wall and ceiling equipped with all the necessary infrastructure, the water of the river. All this complemented by reflections, light or vice versa.

In this way, all the different spaces of the site can be encountered in its transversal direction. In its longitudinal direction instead the modulation of the sequence of water containers present in the surface and in the space below it, can be experienced. Some containers are part of the construction of the surface and hang from it, others may fluctuate with their own horizons inside the water. In this way there would be a monotonous transversal heterogeneity and a homogeneous longitudinal variation. The main actor, the surface, would remain pure and hard. By day it is a sign of entry to the city, at night a cool place for the nocturnal life. Through the system of water collection and some minimal cuts to create accesses to it, the surface would reveal to us, seduced by the water, its hidden nature and its underlying spaces.