The Manzana Verde proposal known as El Palmeral situates itself at the intersection of landscape memory and urban reform, articulating sustainability not as a technocratic add-on but as a cultural condition. Conceived within the 2017 competition framework organised by Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid, the project advances a manifesto-like position: the palm grove operates as a palimpsest where ecological continuity and civic life converge. Rather than erasing prior strata, the design absorbs vegetal heritage into a renewed urban grammar, transforming the neighbourhood into an operative ecology. The project thus reframes “green” from decorative surface to structuring principle, proposing a sustainable neighbourhood grounded in lived temporality and collective memory. Its honourable mention status is less a marginal accolade than an indicator of a critical stance that resists spectacle in favour of systemic coherence. The palm becomes an epistemic device: an index of climate, labour, and historical persistence. In this sense, El Palmeral establishes an ethical horizon for contemporary urbanism—one that recognises sustainability as an aesthetic, social, and political synthesis rather than a checklist of environmental metrics.
