Dune System Line Park

Dune System Line Park reimagines the journey to the sea as a measured walk across a living coastal landscape in Mar Azul, within the Reserva of Partido de Villa Gesell, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Designed by Silvestre Castellani together with Francisco Espósito, Guido Quiró and Emiliano Santagada in 2019, the proposal links the western arrival point to the beach through a large park conceived as a territorial reference in permanent connection with nature, the urbanization and its surrounding areas. The east to west, beach to park relationship is promoted so that the approach to the shore can be read and measured across the territory itself.

The landscape configuration emerges directly from the dunes. Rather than flattening or erasing them, the design stems from the fixation of the existing dunes, seeking the conjunction of the maximum differences of dimension within the topography. Where the ground rises highest, a raised walk threads through the sand, enhancing the surrounding landscape. Small support interventions, ending in viewpoints, emphasize the link with the sea from several different points. The result is a linear park understood as a turn in the logic of appropriation of the existing territory, where the sea and the dunes become visible and recognizable again.

Designing with the dune, not against it

Coastal projects of this kind face a recurring challenge: the dune is both the defining feature of the site and one of its most fragile and mobile elements. Wind, salt and shifting sand make any permanent structure a negotiation with a landform that wants to move. By stabilizing the existing dunes and lifting the path above them, the design protects the fragile vegetation and sand below while giving visitors a continuous route and a sequence of framed views. This restraint is central to good landscape architecture, where the most lasting gesture is often the one that works with natural processes rather than overriding them.

A linear park is well suited to this coastal condition, organizing movement along a single legible line while leaving the wider terrain open and intact. Threaded along the Argentine Atlantic coast, the park turns a simple act of reaching the beach into an unfolding experience of the territory, letting the meeting of land and sea stay at the center of the visitor’s attention.