El Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos de Valencia nos ha invitado un par de veces a sus cursos sobre Paisaje y la Integración de las Infraestructuras y Obras Civiles en el mismo.

La primera vez fue en el año 2007, en un curso sobre el reciente Reglamento de Paisaje de la Comunidad Valenciana, que incluye la obligación de realizar un Estudio de Integración Paisajística de todos los proyectos de Obras Públicas.

La segunda vez fue en el año 2011 en un curso más específico sobre la Integración Paisajística de determinadas infraestructuras. A mi me tocó hablar de los casos de las nuevas líneas de tranvía y de las depuradoras, ya que habíamos trabajado en algunos proyectos de este tipo.

Evidentemente aproveché ambas oportunidades para defender, una vez más, la visión cultural del paisaje en contra de la visión natural y valorable, cuya perversidad nos ha costado la pérdida de casi todos los paisaje próximos a nosotros.

Además, en la segunda de ellas presenté la teoría que asimila el impacto en el paisaje con el virus de la gripe.

Dejo aquí los enlaces por si alguien está interesado en leer estas conferencias.

Conferencia del año 2007:  El Estudio de Integracion Paisajistica 1

Conferencia del año 2011: El Estudio de Integracion Paisajistica 2

Last November a new BREEAM Communities training course took place at Watford, London. After passes the final test, Rafael Narbona has become a new Registered International BREEAM Communities Assessor. Congratulations!

In recent years, the new developments tend to be completed with excellent private gardens. Our office has been involved in several projects of this type of housing, which must take into account their particular characteristics: these gardens are neither public parks, nor private gardens. In a community of one hundred dwellings you could see a very different kind of people living there, from children to retired people, and the garden must be affordable, useful and comfortable for everyone.

Another common problem in such projects is the underground parking, but our office has developed many roof gardens, each one with their most appropriate techniques to solve the very different problems that these special gardens have.

The Starwood Westin Valencia Hotel is one of the most luxuries hotels in Spain. It is located in the Mediterranean city of Valencia, and occupies a restored old building that was originally constructed in a modernist style dating from 1917.

The central Patio is a 1,800 m2 surface and the entire surface, and except 400 m2 that is located in the centre of the patio, all the rest is over the underground parking and Spa. So, we had to work with roof garden techniques but with a very thin soil layer.

We worked closely with the Starwood Design Team to achieve the garden they wanted, a classic vintage Valencian garden that complements the refurbish building style.

When we started the design, a very big eleven meters high Canarian palm was in the middle of the patio, so it was the main starting point for the final design. From this point we designed the garden trying to maximize the small area with deep soil in the centre of the patio. All the big trees and the new palms had to be located in this small central area with deep soil, with the aim of simulating a continuous garden, avoiding the idea of two different gardens, one with deep soil and one without it. We think now, after five years, that it has been successfully achieved.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafaelnarbona/sets/72157627451389459/

The Universal Oceanographic Park is one of the most important public works that has been built in Valencia in the recent years. It’s considered as one of the biggest Oceanographic Parks worldwide, and it’s the European biggest one.

The gardens were designed with the aim of contributing to the theme of the different world ecosystems that are at the Park, from the most arid places to the coldest, like the arctic area.

The most difficult problem to resolve before starting the project was the non existence of a deep soil layer because almost all the garden is built over the underground facilities and machinery basement of the Oceanographic Park. So, the selection of the appropriate plants for each ecosystem was accompanied by the selection of the appropriate soil mixture. The irrigation system was also designed taking into account every different ecosystem, such the Mediterranean, the Arctic, the Tropical, etc., with a very good drainage system to avoid tree root problems and fungal diseases.

The successful development of the gardens after several years of its implementation allow you to enjoy them almost independently from the main animal collection, being a pleasure to walk under the palms and trees while visiting this beautiful Oceanographic Park.

A good example about sustainable Landscape Architecture

Alicante is well known city on the east coast of Spain. With very hot weather, almost all year the maximum temperature may rise as much as 40 degrees Celsius in summer, sometimes more. The amount of rain is very low and fertile soil is totally non-existent. Furthermore, like many Mediterranean cities, the building density and the thousands of cars running everywhere make it for the people a very hard and uncomfortable life.

With all these premises, to begin the design of a new park, with over 80.000 square meters, was not only a really big chance, but also a big responsibility for us: in one hand no fertile soil, no water, no fresh air but contaminated and hot air, and in the other hand lot of people that are looking for a more comfortable way of life.

The site was a large space between two roads, with a transversal slope that ran from six to eleven meters. Before starting the project, the main premises we had strongly decided were:

1. The entire surface must be absolutely horizontal so people could use it and second, but no less important, to guarantee that absolutely all the rain water will stay in the soil for the plants and for a fresher environment.
2. This change from a sloped surface to a horizontal one must be done with a certain result of cero balance earthworks. That’s means that no one cubic meter of soil will leave and, of course, was come into the new park. To achieve this important premise, we worked with a 3D model till we had the exact position of all terraces, and each one at the right level.
   
3. Absolutely all the surface must be permeable, even paths and pavement surfaces. The aim of this premise, one more time, was to guarantee all the rain water remains in place.
4. Native plants: In this case, most of the native plants can’t help us for a better and more comfortable urban park. They have resolved how to grow without rainwater in very hot conditions just reducing their activity close to nothing, waiting for a wetter time. This is fine for evolution and survival, but bad for people that are looking for fresh air and better conditions in a very hot and high-density city. So we decided, at the one hand, to avoid every invasive plant, and those that require high amount of irrigation to grow well. However, on the other hand, we could use many plants from similar ecological conditions, which can help us, and the people, to have a better and more comfortable environment. These plants are what we chose for the new park. Trees with a quick growth rate and a high transpiration and shadow level but with the capability of surviving without a large amount of irrigation.
   
5. Irrigation system: One of the most important improvements that can be achieved in dry and hot city is to build a web pipe system that takes advantage of the cleaned water after it passes through a waste wa ter plant, and the Alicante Council is doing this. We were very lucky because one of the main pipes goes just along the north side road of the site. However after that, we might to be so careful about the plant selection. To have as much water for irrigation as you could spend doesn’t mean you can use any kind of trees. The trees are the most important structure of a park that will be capable of surviving against any weather or facility problem, such irrigation system breaking down, drought months, and so on. Moreover, we can choose among hundreds of different trees, not only natives but as good for the ecological site as the natives. We accompanied them with thousands of shrubs, chosen in the same way. For the lawn we were careful as well. Lawn is important in hot cities for it’s psychological benefits, besides the improvement of air quality. It must be chosen always thinking about the environmental and ecological conditions. So we chose to make the lawn from the well-known grass Pennisetum clandestinum because of its low irrigation requirements. Of course it needs some amount of water irrigation, but it’s water from a wastewater plant and is, probably, the best spend water of the city and the healthiest water because it cleans the air and, indeed, the citizen’s lungs. If the irrigation system break down or the wastewater plant has any problem to provide water for a while, we don’t have to worry about the loss of the grass, because the main structure is the trees and in a few days we will have the grass green again.
   
6. All the walls to hold terraces are made with dry native stone. With them we avoided to use concrete, a more energy consumer material, and we remember the Mediterranean landscape, full of dry stone walls and terraces for agricultural purposes, in a dry and hot area, where any drop of rain water was a heaven blessing.
7. The footbridge: when a large park is divided in pieces by roads, the pedestrians are almost always waiting to cross from one garden to the other, while cars have the right of way. If you have a slope that can give you the opportunity to save three meters in high with neither ramps nor stairs, why not join the gardens over the traffic with a plain footbridge? So, we did and now, two gardens of about 25.000 square meters, become of 50.000. It may not seem very important, but it is for children and their parents, of course.
   
8. The sport area: the third big area has been devoted to sport facilities, including an eleven-a-side-football field, two paddle courts and a multiuse one for basket, hand ball, etc., and a pavilion with eight changing rooms, fully equipped.
9. The Money: all these things are been made just for less than sixty euros by square meter. More or less a fifth of that spent on the coolest, fashionable and highly designed urban parks, and money is money, especially public money.
   
10. The social improvement: the third fundamental element about sustainability, after environment and economy is the improvement of social and human care, and this is very important in this project. The site were this project is located is troubled, controversial, dangerous and nasty, like every neighbourhood where politicians try to move outsiders. They build social dwellings as a social improvement and in the end there are no more than a new ghetto. The building of these new gardens is very important to improve the image of the neighbourhood because it’s well known how green parks improve the social life in these neighbourhoods.
11. The End. We are very proud about these gardens, and we appreciate and would like acknowledging the very nice conservation work that the city gardeners have been doing since the park was opened.

El Paisaje Ordinario siempre estuvo presente entre los primeros paisajistas

Es muy reconfortante ver como, paulatinamente, ese paisaje cotidiano, el que más vemos y el que más vivimos, va tomando protagonismo en las reuniones y actividades de los organismos más activos respecto al Paisaje, como es, sin duda, el Observatorio del Paisaje que dirige magistralmente Joan Nogué y que ha elevado la importancia del Paisaje a cotas impensables hace pocos años, incluyéndolo en los procesos de toma de decisiones mucho más allá de la reposición de algunas hierbas en los taludes, y eso si afectaba a espacios de alto valor paisajístico.

Y para quienes hemos defendido siempre y desde hace muchos años, que el paisaje era más importante cuanto más cerca lo teníamos y que si había que invertir era en los enfermos, mientras se cuida y no se olvida a los sanos, es aún si cabe mayor el gozo al ver como ese paisaje ordinario va adquieriendo la importancia que siempre debería haber tenido, y que habría ayudado mucho a que viviéramos en un entorno mucho más sereno, saludable y hermoso.

He reunido algunos de los artículos escritos hace ya algunos años, acerca de ese paisaje tan próximo como olvidado que es el Paisaje Ordinario: paisaje-ordinario

Las canteras agotadas: Un lugar siempre apasionante para desarrollar nuevos usos sociales, lúdicos e, incluso, residenciales.

En Abril de 2007 tuvo lugar en Almería una reunión de Gestores y Propietarios de Canteras, a la que fuimos invitados a participar con una conferencia que tratara los posibles usos de las canteras, una vez agotada su vida útil.

Las canteras son casi siempre objeto de polémica, sobre todo por su fuerte impacto en el paisaje. Una vez agotadas, su recuperación paisajística es muy compleja, sobre todo si no se ha tenido en cuenta durante la fase de explotación, quedando al final unos desmontes de gran potencia, cuya restautación paisajística es extremadamente compleja y cara.

En nuestro texto mostrábamos las inmensas posibilidades que tienen estos lugares para implantar un sinfín de usos que posibiliten su rentabilidad social y económica, incluyendo un ejemplo real de un trabajo que habíamos realizado para reconvertir una cantera agotada en un espacio lúdico con aprovechamiento residencial.

Este es el resumen de la conferencia en pdf: canteras-agotadas_texto

En noviembre de 2000 tuve la oportunidad de participar en un curso del Master de Arquitectura del Paisaje en la histórica Universidad de Dessau, cerca de Berlín, y que es más conocida como la Bauhaus.

El curso era: TRENDS IN EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. ANHALT UNIVERSITY. DESSAU. BAUHAUS

Preparé la conferencia en inglés, y no encuentro la traducción, por lo que dejo aquí la versión original, tal y como se dictó y publicó en su día.

El tema de la conferencia surgió por la fecha de la invitación: coincidía la celebración del centenario de la muerte de tres pensadores que habían basado sus ideas en el conocimiento y admiración por el pensamiento griego antiguo, sin el cual, no seríamos mas que animales. Eran Nietzsche, Wilde y Ruskin.

Vaya pinta

.

.

El texto en inglés en pdf:
homer-and-de-future-of-landscape-architecture

Fue sin duda una feliz tarde, sobre todo porque después de tantos años, nunca había tenido una audiencia tan diferente a las que habitualmente asiste en los actos más académicos, a los que estoy acostumbrado. Gente mayor, que se interesa mucho por lo que allí se cuenta y que no tiene el más mínimo problema en preguntar y pedir más información sobre lo que está escuchando.

Agradezco a la Academia, a su secretario y al profesor Ballester esta gratificante oportunidad.

El resumen gráfico de la conferencia puede descargarse en pdf.

el-arbol-en-la-ciudad-racv-20101