An urbanization was deserted in Valencia after the real estate bubble. Some geniuses have made it ‘Call of Duty’

The real estate bubble It has had, at least, a positive effect: abandoned residential areas are born to be born a sudden and sporadic new life when they are assaulted by groups of Airsoft fans, a kind of ‘Call of Duty’ in real life that could not aspire to more colorful and appropriate scenarios than those of site as seven waters.

What is Airsoft? An activity that Simulates tactical fighting using reprisons of firearms that trigger small plastic balines. These weapons are Real -scale replicas but they do not entail danger (they cannot even be manipulated to become real weapons). The objective is to meet missions or eliminate the opposite team, and over time this hobby has diversified in different styles, ranging from the Recreation of historical battles to modern war clashes that remind it of ‘Call of Duty’.

The unusual clash between the Airsoft and the real estate bubble. Airsoft is played in closed environments, which can range from areas specially designed to it to more open but security controls. For example, abandoned industrial areas or empty peoples are used. On many occasions the associations that organize Airsoft games run into legal requirements that require the delimitation of the pitch so that the balls do not exceed their limits or the express permit of the land owner and the corresponding licenses. Therefore, an area like seven waters is especially appreciated by fans.

What is seven waters? Seven waters is A municipality in the province of Valencia54 kilometers from the capital and surrounded by a mountain natural environment. It has 1279 inhabitants and a remarkable story with vestiges of the Muslim era, but the most interesting for Airsoft practitioners is an unfinished urbanization where only the streets and about 50 homes were built. The constructions (whose future plans included 684 villas, a shopping center, a hotel and a golf course, all with US financing) They were paralyzed in 2007 for the outbreak of the real estate bubble, and although it is not the only area around seven waters that are abandoned (there are An empty village very close, the reatillo), is the only one that has been recycled for Airsoft practice.

Legal Airsoft. The treatment that has reached the Airsoft Plairsoft association and the owner of the urbanizations It is simple and benefits all those involved: the area is rented as a space for sports use, which prevents cases of occupation and vandalism; The owner puts the basic elements of security and surveillance, and the nearby seven waters receive a thrust in its economy and dynamization of other activities (in the area It is practiced mountaineering, riding, Mountain Bikeparagliding and hiking), which take advantage of the natural environment.

Zombi attraction park. In 3Dguegosour partner Rubén Márquez compared the reuse of this space to what a few years ago He could see in Detroit: a city with neighborhoods so abandoned that in its day the possibility of recycling them was raised as Zombi theme attraction park. That did not set to curdle, but it is inevitable to think of projects like that when we see men disguised as soldiers with plastic guns, in environments that could have been very close to habitability, with villas that on the outside seem almost functional. A zombie amusement park, but where the guns do not kill.

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