A groundbreaking new public plaza has officially opened in the historic center of Dénia, located in Spain's Valencia region, representing a revolutionary approach to 21st-century urban design. The María Hervás Plaza, designed by DVCH DeVillarCHacon Architecture, stands as a climate refuge for the city—a living, adaptable space capable of responding to both community needs and changing environmental conditions.
The 1,300-square-meter project emerged as the winner of an ideas competition held in Dénia in 2021, stemming from an innovative initiative by the City Council to forgo a valuable building plot on the city's main thoroughfare. Instead of commercial development, city officials chose to create a strategically located public space at the most dynamic and busiest point of the historic district. The plaza seeks to accommodate a wide variety of programs while offering a flexible civic platform that evolves with urban life.
Architects Jose de Villar and Carlos Chacon designed the space as a synthesis of ten years of research into integrating artificial, social, and natural elements across all scales of architectural practice. This research encompasses everything from monumental works like the Villanueva Auditorium in Extremadura and the Nangang Towers Landscape in Taipei, Taiwan, to more intimate experimental projects such as the demountable house in Apan, Mexico. The Dénia plaza represents the culmination of lessons learned throughout this extensive journey.
The project organizes itself as a concentric system, structuring two main axes through two pergolas of distinct character, each capable of housing spaces of different scales and atmospheres. A green perimeter pergola shelters shaded, intimate, and cool areas filled with vegetation, while a central terracotta pergola forms a collective and infrastructural heart—a scenic void open to multiple urban activities. Beneath this tectonic world of pergolas unfolds a stereotomic landscape, carefully sculpted from the ground plane.
The terrain rises and hollows out to create integrated benches, children's play areas, and a small stage at one end of the plaza. The earthy character of this ground level draws from materials imbued with local memory, including the substantial weight of castle stone, the distinctive texture of clay cobblestones, and the subtle sheen of their glazed surfaces. These carefully selected references ground the project in its specific location, translating the material and cultural essence of Dénia into a contemporary urban form.
The delicate green pergola creates a continuous threshold of shade with varying depths that guides entrance to the plaza. Composed of interwoven fragments designed to blend over time among vines and Mediterranean tree species, this structure requires minimal maintenance and water. The pergola features thin vertical lines of aligned steel plates supporting a series of "leaves" that are visible on one axis and concealed on the opposite, creating a dynamic rhythm of presence and disappearance as visitors move through the space.
In striking contrast, the terracotta pergola asserts itself with a more forceful and architectural presence. Its slatted structure frames a void charged with collective potential—artificial, electric, and open to transformation. This central structure comes equipped with motorized awnings for solar control, integrated lighting and sound systems for events, and electrical outlets distributed along its entire perimeter. It functions as an adaptable infrastructure capable of hosting any activity requiring energy and community participation.
Photographed by renowned architectural photographer Hisao Suzuki, the completed plaza demonstrates how the two pergolas work together to define a microclimatic and social ecosystem. The space serves as both refuge and stage—a living laboratory that redefines the relationship between public space, environment, and community in the contemporary Mediterranean city. The project represents a new model for urban development that prioritizes public good over private commercial interests while addressing the pressing challenges of climate adaptation in historic urban centers.
The plaza officially opened in 2025 and has already become a new urban landmark within Dénia's historic center, significantly improving connectivity and spatial continuity of its surroundings. The project stands as a testament to how thoughtful architectural intervention can create spaces that serve both immediate community needs and long-term environmental resilience.
