"The Vallehermoso Botanical Gardens aims to reflect the important role that the island of Gomera played on the Americas shipping route with the valuable native flora and plant species that formed an important part of the exchange that took place between America and Europe, covering teaching, cultural, scientific and even tourist aspects.
The theatre of intervention follows the course of the Vallehermoso gorge, surrounded by traditional farming terraces. In the project, straight lines are superimposed on the landscape. Pedestrian paths zig-zag through the landscape, defining areas of gardens, which have conserved something of the pre-existing vegetation by maintaining the local hundred-year-old palm trees.
Water play a leading role in the garden, flowing as canals in a calm pond or flooding a crop that needs it.
The grounds are defined by a perimeter wall, which at one point runs along the nurseries and shaded areas that are constructed in the traditional style of the ever-present shade walls. A small, terraced building will receive visitors to provide them with information and illustrations of the garden's contents before starting the open-air visit. The visitors' centre has been built up against one of the park's rock faces, blending it into the terrain as if it were designed and moulded by the mountain itself, forming a transition between the access level and the start of the path leading through the terraces. The functional programme is small and laid out on two floors. The access, bar and services are on the upper floor and an exhibition hall and offices downstairs. Stores and toilets are located against the embankment, opening up the public areas to the garden through external terraces.
The basic construction material is concrete, coloured dark grey, which stratifies and adapts to the terrain with different textures of finish."
[Excerpts from Artengo Menis Pastrana, Documentos de Arquitectura No. 46, 2000, p.22.]