Synagogue Square

The project is an urban regeneration and heritage intervention, located in the Historical City Center of Onda, from de Islamic period (s.XI-sXII) declared as a Monument of Significant Cultural Interest with the Monument category in 1967. The square is a void in the medieval city, in a topographic area, close to the archaeological rests of arabic medieval palaces and the Chistian Church. This square was a social meeting space in the past, for agriculture uses or as a playground of a children’s school. But in the last decades was used only as a parking lot, degradating the quality of the space. In 2016, during an archeological research, an enclosure of medieval rammed earth walls reinforced with stones and the rests of a stair and pilasters of arches were discovered 5 meters deep in the ground.

Conservation status In the archaeological site were discovered the remains of a large space 15x15 meters size, from an Andalusian raft of the 12th Century surrounded by 1,40 meters thick walls. This space was reused during the 13-14th Century, during the Hospital Christian Order time, building 4 lines of stone arches and a Gothic staircase from a civil or religious building. The aim of the intervention is to recover the interest and urban life of the neighborhood with an evident depopulation, from the reintegration of the archaeological site to the rest of the square and restoring the connexions to the streets that were lost during years in the archaeological works.

Participatory Heritage. The design was adjusted through different meetings with neighbors and residents of the neighborhood, to adapt to the different particularities: people with reduced mobility, small businesses, preferential routes, needs of meeting and play spaces...

The project was designed from an inclusive perspective, to improve the quality of life of people in the neighborhood. The floating plaza is a continuity of the public space of the surrounding streets, which overflies the archaeological space.