Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset said the city is probably 'the most genuinely human object that we can find'. Indeed it is, so long as nature is shaped and changed to adapt it to our needs. It is these needs -the needs of the future inhabitants of Valdebebas- that have been taken into account from the preliminary design stages of this large-scale project. Since its inception, the maxim for Valdebebas has been to recover space for citizens and to make a more human and pleasant city. In short, a city where it is easy to live. Expand


Valdebebas represents a reference point in city planning for Madrid. The city was designed compactly with taller buildings, resulting in greater density. This forethought in planning will result in a critical mass that will attract businesses and public services (schools, day care centers, health clinics) and create an economically and socially viable community. To achieve this goal, our urban planners were particularly meticulous in defining and combining different land uses. Residential use (housing) and tertiary use (offices and hotels) have been integrated throughout the development, essentially eliminating areas of limited activity.

In Valdebebas, mixed use development has been revived, so a single building has shops, restaurants or cafés on the ground floor, offices on the first floor and residences above. During the early stages of the development, people who live and work in Valdebebas will have all the services they need at their fingertips: neighborhood shops, physicians and dentists, service bureaus, property management firms, attorneys, etc.

Additionally, a variety of innovative approaches have been carried out to achieve integrated public transport solutions. These include:
- Reserving separate platforms for the proposed light rail light
- Designating separate dedicated bus lines along principal north-south thoroughfares within the development and the Justice Campus Corridor
- Creating three-lane roads
- Giving priority to bicycle lanes for transport throughout Valdebebas that connect with leisure bicycle paths in the Woodland Park

With the aim of making vehicle traffic flow as fluidly as possible, a street hierarchy has been established, taking transportation and connection needs into account within the development and with the road network of northwest Madrid. Expand



Utilizing the street hierarchy, site furnishings have been selected according to composition, usage and types based on the intended function of the space (transition, rest, leisure or culture), its scale and the use of the area (residential, office, shops, social institutions, etc). The layout of these areas and the activities they encourage arise from a usage analysis of neighboring plots of land.