Zaha Hadid is to redesign the Zorrozaurre area in Bilbao, over 57 hectares currently filled with obsolete industrial buildings which is to be transformed into a residential area. Once again then, following the Guggenheim by Gehry and the metro by Foster, the Basque town focuses on quality architecture for urban regeneration and to raise its image at an international level.

Zorrozaurre, a peninsula which extends almost to the edge of Bilbau to the nearby city of Barakaldo, will be an even more ambitious operation than that already carried out for the area of Abandoibarra (around the Guggenheim) designed by Cesar Pelli, also because the council intends to retain industry, in the form of new technology, alongside housing and extensive green areas.

The contract has yet to be signed but talk is of a fee of around a million euros for the British architect, who will be working alongside two local professionals Iñaki Peña and Antón Agirregoitia.