Bonaval Park

The garden once lay behind a convent, where the friars grew their food. By the late 1980s it was largely in ruins, and the Portuguese architect was asked to turn it into a public park at the same time as he designed the contemporary art centre next to it.

Eighteenth century maps and excavations on site uncovered a granite water channel from the original irrigation system. The design follows it, with a sequence of ramps and stairs that climb the slope and tie the old terraces together.

Low granite walls, grass terraces and the existing trees make up most of the park, and the former cemetery of the convent, with its walls of burial niches, became one of its quiet spaces.