Landscape architects EMF teamed up with architecture firm Ardèvol to remove over 400 buildings from a former holiday village in eastern Spain and transform the landscape into a series of meandering pathways and coastal viewpoints (+ movie).

The Tudela-Culip (Club Med) resort at Cap de Creus in Cadaqués had been a holiday destination for 900 tourists every summer, but in 1998 the coastal site was given protected status as a Natural Park and the resort was forced to close its doors five years later.

Working alongside over 50 specialist consultants, EMF and Ardèvol were able to deconstruct most of the buildings of the Tudela-Culip and restore the natural landscape amidst a series of architectural interventions.

The most prominent addition to the site is the Cubes Viewpoint, a pair of Corten steel structures facing out to sea, while slabs of stone and more Corten steel were used to create seating areas and landmarks elsewhere around the park.

Pathways are divided into a three-tier hierarchy. The main access road is laid in asphalt, secondary pathways are formed from concrete, and informal routes are defined by ankle-height metal railings.

Small Corten panels scattered around the site feature cutaways that highlight how some of the natural rock formations resemble animals.

The five-year-long project was completed in 2010, but recently received the Rosa Barba European Landscape Prize at the 7 European Biennial of Landscape Architecture.

See more landscape architecture on Dezeen, including a colourful Copenhagen park by BIG and a staggered concrete square in Zaragoza, Spain.

Photography is by Martí Franch, Pau Ardèvol and Esteve Bosc.

Read on for more details from the design team:

Tudela-Culip (Club Med) Restoration Project in the Natural Parc 'Cap de Creus'

This project is a showcase for landscape driven nature restoration projects. It turns a demolition order, a purely and strictly habitat reclamation, into a creative landscape restoration development. Through necessarily inexpensive actions, the design skilfully construes and orchestrates the deconstruction as a combination of destruction and construction to celebrate the site’s peculiarities, both natural and cultural. It proposes ways to choreograph on-site visitors into a narrative that stimulates the culture in nature in an innovative approach to finally question whether erasing and voiding is just as valid as filling in and adding.

Location: Cap de Creus cape, Cadaqués, Catalunya, Spain
Area: 90 ha
Period of design: 2005-2007
Implementation period: 2009-2010

Landscape architects: EMF landscape architects - Martí Franch
Collaborators EMF: M. Batalla, M. Bianchi, A. Lopez, G. Batllori, L. Majer, C. Gomes M. Solé, L. Ochoa, J.L Campoy
Architects: J/T Ardèvol S.L. - Ton Ardèvol
Collaborators Ardèvols: Raul Lopez, Cristina Carmona.

Commissioned by: Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, Medio Rural y Marino. Generalitat de Catalunya. Gestora de runes de la construcció S.A. Parc Natural del Cap de Creus.

Construction companies:
Tragsa (deconstruction)
Control Demeter and Massachs Excavacions S.L.U. (deconstruction, waste management, Restoration and re-urbanization)
Jardinería Sant Narcís (invasive exotic flora extraction)
Serralleria Ferran Collel (viewpoints, totems, terciary path, animal rock identification)