SEOUL DESIGN AWARD

 

Honorable Mention 4.

GARDENS IN THE AIR

 

Group Name: Nomad Garden S.L.

City: Seville, Spain

Representative Designer: Nomad Garden S.L.

Website: nomadgarden.net/EN-HOME

 

[Project Story]

JARDINES EN EL AIRE (GARDENS IN THE AIR) is an urban ecological restoration initiative promoted by the City Council of Seville in Tres Barrios-Amate neighbourhood. During the project presentation on December 2020, Mr. Antonio Muñoz, delegate of Urban Habitat in the city council of Seville, introduced some of our main challenges: 

-    If 80% of building stock we will use in Europe in 2050 has already been built, and 97% of it will need improvements to adapt to the new climate changes... Then, we would have to prioritize how to manage, care for, and improve what already exists, developing new partnerships... Without leaving anyone behind…

 

Mari Reyes, one of the 18 students of the educational and social association of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, explained to the audience that filled the street during that evening, some of the works done: 

-    During the last year, we have explored the resources and species in the neighbourhood, visualising new connections based on them and materialising them through devices and architectures that allow them to prosper in balance, generating a more habitable environment.
-    This process has led to the development of three works that are overlapped and feed into each other: a vertical garden, a perfume and a polyphony for people, machines, plants and birds... 

 

During the inauguration of the garden, one of the local residents, an elder woman, told:
-    Woooow!!! 
-    It looks like Europe!

 

Estrella, the president of the Educational and social association of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, an organization that helps every year more than 400 children of all nationalities to live together in an exemplary community, with more than 40 years of experience, proudly replied:
-    Of course it’s Europe!
-    Even though we live in one of the humblest neighbourhoods on Europe and for that, from our childhood days, we have to bear a popular imagination full of stereotypes and deficiencies... 
-    This project is intended to show just the opposite: we want to gaze at the plenty and the strengths that also exist here and reflect on how to highlight them through knowledge and techniques accessible to the whole community... 
-    Because we also live in one of the most cosmopolitan and biodiverse neighbourhoods in the city and, from this perspective, we want to bring about a small systemic change.

 

Now, we are going to focus on the three main works done. 

 

Proposal 1) Recycling condensed water from air-conditioning systems to create vertical gardens

Let’s talk about the AC machines. We are more than 300,000 machines. We are present in 82.6% of the Sevillian houses... Especially in this neighbourhood. Regarding energy consumption, we can represent up to 25% of household consumption. We can also exceed 60 db acoustically and, at a thermal level, we can generate an increase of heat that ranges between 1 and 2 ºC in the city... we also prevent premature deaths related to heatstrokes.

 

But there are also other inhabitants in this story. I love the puddles of water from the air conditioners. Each machine generates between 1 and 2 litres of water per hour. With this amount of water, an Olympic-size swimming pool could be filled daily in the city... Luckily, it doesn’t happen! While air conditioners have a negative impact on environment, plants help to mitigate the high temperatures in a passive way. We, the plants, remove co2 and airbone particulate matter from air, produce food, promote biodiversity and decorate the city.

 

During the first workshops, we analysed how to design and cultivate a garden that recycles such water. The most productive and pragmatic theory was recycling and hacking the same air conditioner casings and supports..... We, the children, had to figure out how to develop the air conditioner casing. My proposal were to turn it into a nest. Others suggested to convert it into a flowerpot stand, into a bookstore or into a secret chest...Then we created the prototype of these designs in a digital fabrication workshop. In collaboration with Collateral studio, we have tested different garden layouts that also allow the cohabitation of plants and birds. 

 

We are more than 70 bird species in the neighbourhood. The education community, together with “Friends of Amate park association” and SEO/Birdlife, helped us to move in the garden, nesting and growing plants for food and fungicide use. The mashrabiyas were another of our influences for design purposes. Marshrabiyas are traditional architectural elements characteristic of the Islamic world. These elements combine the ability to shade and to accelerate air circulation, typical of the wooden lattices, and the ability to cool through evapotranspiration of ceramic jars and basins of water located inside them. Inside our mashrabiyas, species, technologies and traditions are mixed, linking pots, ceramics, plants, nests, sensors, lights, solenoid valves, and an arduino that manages the water from air conditioners, stores the climate data and regulates the night lighting. After a year of measurements we have observed that the summer temperature has been reduced by 0.78ºC due to the influence of the garden… And the plants are watered on many days exclusively with water from the AC.

 

Proposal 2) Recycling the pruning of vegetation in neighbourhood to collectively distil fragances

We are more than 50,000 bitter orange trees in Seville! And Tres Barrios-Amate is one of the areas with the highest concentration of bitter orange trees in the city. While we are managed by the parks and gardens department, we go unnoticed for the rest of population, with which we establish only passive relationships. Unlike the city, people in the countryside know the names and properties of plants, establishing deep mutual relationships. How could we encourage this type of relationships in the city?

Juan Yameogo is another of the 18 students of the educational and social association of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria: 
-    We identified, mapped and collected samples of the aromatic plant species in the neighbourhood to send them to Bernabé Fillion, who is a famous french perfumist...
-    He, in turn, sent us suggestions for perfumes developed with these plants...
-    I'm smelling them right now. The third sample is my favourite one!

 

The fragrance finally suggested arises from the dialogue between the bitter orange with the incense, which draws more subtle notes of Schinus molle, rose, Eucalyptus or rosemary... All of them are plants from the five continents cultivated in the yard of the Association La Candelaria, in the streets of “Tres Barrios” or “Parque Amate” areas. A selection representing the memory of one of the most diverse and cosmopolitan districts of Seville. One of the selection criteria for the perfume essences was the use of plant species with sufficient density so that they could be collected and distilled in the city itself through a process of circular economy with the neighbourhood community. The vertical garden also includes the plants selected for the perfume, especially rosemary, in order to be harvested for future distillations. In this way, sustainability is guaranteed between the neighbourhood landscape and the proposed landscape. The perfume packaging represents, like a fractal, the drilling designs created for the mashrabiyas. The profits generated from the perfume sale will be used to take care of the garden and to extend this initiative through the neighbourhood organising workshops for the community. If you want to support us, visit the website jardinesenelaire.com

 

Proposal 3) Recycling the sounds of the Human and non-human Inhabitants of the neighbourhood to convert them into a polyphony representing new partnerships between them.

Our students, in collaboration with Antropoloops, Vibrató, SEO-birdlife and Friends of Amate park association worked during some months with sounds and memories: We have not only collected essences, we have also recorded sounds, stories and wishes of the neighbourhood residents. 

Then we have composed a manifesto with the recorded pieces:
-    We migrate and create communities living in nests of perfumed mud
-    We grow gardens distilling water from air conditioners
-    We fly high connecting plants, machines, people and birds

 

We inserted the manifesto in the garden by placing a word in each masrhabiya. Then, we translated it into the main languages used by the neighbourhood residents. On the side parts of the mashrabiyas, the names of the most common plants and birds of the neighbourhood are also shown. Desirée Martín, a young composer from Seville, used these sound recordings to compose a polyphony. Then we, Proyecto eLe, performed the composition in the garden. The premiere took place on 12-20-2020.

 

For listening to it, please search on soundcloud: “sinergias by luces de barrio”

We would like to end with a reflection by the architect Louis I. Kahn: “street is a room by consensus. A shared room where walls are built by those who live there and are made available to the city for a collective use”.
 

[Project Presentation Video]