Rubén Tapias Cañas

1785m [international competition border zone] . Bidasoa estuary

Rubén Tapias Cañas . IE University diploma

The project 1785m (cross-border competition area), situated on the estuary of the Bidasoa river (France-Spain Border), suggests tourism as a catalyst for economic, social and environmental change in the region.

In order to do so, it identifies the Fuenterrabía airport as the most damaging infrastructure to the Social, environmental and -soon to be- economical welfare, having conducted a viability study we can determine that the substitution of the airport with a new project outline of global influence such as 1785m; a project capable of managing and mobilizing a ''glocal'' network, that allows to implement a sustainable format of tourism that will generate economic, social and landscape benefits to the area.
Also, the actual tourism dynamics suggest that tourism is not an industry of space but one of time, meaning that the tourist does not purchase land depending on the social, cultural or environmental features, but in fact purchases the time that he is going to spend there, which is subject to the amount of activities and experience that he can acquire from the area.
In accordance with this analysis is where project 1785m becomes a reality, turning itself into a new and powerful experience gatherer, capable of offering that hybrid and complex idle offer that works as a point of attraction for both local and global tourism. It manages all this by taking advantage and extracting all the economic, cultural and environmental factors of the environment to reach a sustainable development in the short and long term. The old airport will now be converted into an international island that has been conceived for speed competitions, a space fitted with water channels for sporting competitions such as rowing, sailing, etc. Indoor and open air pools, hangars for gliding, a runway 1km long for small planes. A multi-use track for go karting, cycling and skating. And as a culmination to the project it offers a 4000m track with ''FIA'' official approval for the celebration of F1 Grand Prix.
1785m is definitely an Idle and tourist space, with a big offer of events and activities all year long. A space in which people and vehicles, technology and nature, production and consumption all combine in an own personal architectural language, based on coherence, reality and order.