HELLO

The year we have closed commemorated three decades since Barcelona greeted the world with the opening of the Olympic Games. We still have in our retinas the huge “HELLO”, choreographed by the dancers, which was drawn in the center of the Olympic Stadium in Montjuïc, in the summer of 1992. Since then, many things have changed, but fortunately, we still greet each other in the same way.

We say “hello” to people we know, to our family. We say “hello” to our friends and to strangers with whom we want to make friends or start a simple conversation. We also say “hello” to our pets, even though it seems they don’t understand us. We say “hello” to the sun as it rises over the horizon and to a gravestone in a niche where we buried a loved one. In short, we say “hello” to everything we recognize as our own, in our environment.

In the movie Mart (Ridley Scott, 2015), actor Matt Damon says “hello” to a plant born in Martian soil. A small green sprout with two leaves, just over five centimeters tall, coming from a piece of potato buried in the soil. A daily event, the birth of a plant on our planet, becomes an extraordinary event outside our natural habitat.

For us, plants and trees are completely normal. We see trees in the high mountains, by the sea, on cliffs, along rivers and streams. We see plants sprout everywhere in nature, in our gardens, in greenhouses. We see grass grow unchecked in our gardens, fields, and even along the edges of a road. A plant that has made a hole to survive in the crack of a sidewalk, surrounded by asphalt, we call a “weed.”

We are not fully aware of the great fortune of having soil rich in organic components in almost every corner of our world and the fact that a plant is capable of generating life in this substrate, using the energy from the sun through photosynthesis.

This very normal situation, as far as we know so far, is something unprecedented in our solar system. The protagonist of Mart has to use his own excrement to enrich the sterile Martian soil and turn it into a medium capable of sustaining life.

This idea of soil as a medium is something that engineers and architects know well. In the words of landscape architect and architect Teresa Galí-Izard, historically, soil has been considered a simple structural support, with mechanical characteristics. Engineering and Architecture degrees study Soil Mechanics. Geologists can determine its density, compressive strength, flexibility, and even its age, classifying soils with different names. But it is true that construction and engineering have paid little attention to the life that soil hosts and its ability to bring forth new life.

A plant that has made a hole to survive in a crack in the sidewalk, surrounded by asphalt, we call it a “weed”

And yet, soil gives us food. Josep Pla said that “a country’s cuisine is its landscape in the pot.” We eat the landscape in a balance that we take for granted, while we depredate the land with artificial constructions. The growing naturalization of cities, reversing asphalted areas, and increasing the presence of plant species is a necessary and unstoppable process to allow for our own subsistence. With a continuously expanding world population, it makes sense to make way for crops that will feed us while improving the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink. Perhaps the time has come to plant artichokes and cauliflowers in our streets instead of shrubs and flowers. In the Gràcia and Sant Andreu neighborhoods in Barcelona, the planting of orange trees in some streets has led groups of volunteers to organize the harvest of bitter oranges, with which they make their own jam. An action that not only improves the public space’s landscape but is also a powerful tool for social cohesion and community belonging.

But, as I was saying, many things have changed since that Olympic summer of 92. We are a society more conscious, by necessity, of the precarious balance of nature that allows us to exist on the planet. Not long ago, the College of Architects of Catalonia organized the Decarbonization of Architecture sessions, which focused on the necessary reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO2, both in the manufacturing of materials and the construction process itself. Currently, buildings account for 35% of these emissions and 40% of global energy consumption.

And the answer comes from the earth. The materials we use come from it, and some, like trees, we plant and harvest in a cycle that, if properly exploited, can last a long time. Trees, as we know since childhood, eat CO2 to grow and return it to us as oxygen, helping to reduce pollution. We have always built with wood, but for a time it seems we forgot about it. Perhaps due to the fabulous ability of concrete to “concrete” in countless shapes or perhaps due to a lack of attachment to a constructive culture and tradition. Fortunately, today we are witnessing a renaissance of wood construction, which could represent a paradigm shift towards the necessary ecological and social transition. This will also bring about the emergence of new aesthetic standards, associated with new values. An aesthetic of sustainability, we could say.

In any case, it is still beautiful the idea of planting our buildings and watching them grow. Waiting for them with open arms and giving them a warm “hello” of welcome.