“CHAHAR BAG”

In moments of emergency (climate, resources and economic) it is essential to identify the essential and indispensable, which is why the question arises: where does man come from, if not from nature, the beginning of everything?

An agora that finds its place in the “Chahar Bagh”, which in Persian means the “Garden of Gardens”. The project is born from one main premise: DO NOT BUILD, PLANT. Without compromising the temporary atmosphere capable of captivating the flâneur, a temporary construction cannot mean the waste of finite, non-reusable resources. It must move the passer-by without entailing an unnecessary cost; it must be at the service of society and the city, never the other way around.

The project proposes the construction of a large plant nursery in the middle of the city, a space that, without the use of walls, allows different areas for various activities to be defined and delimited. A temporary nursery that will supply the city's new redevelopment projects and the reforestation of burnt forests, with municipal savings made possible by buying smaller trees that will have grown by the time they are used.

At the same time it will generate a cool, comfortable and shaded space, a space full of life with an explosion of biodiversity, a playful space full of activities, but also an educational space about native plants, their upkeep and origin, about edible plants — and above all a space that helps rethink the way we are building our cities and how we live in them.

The current Plaza del Humilladero is a worthy example of the old urbanisation models, where the spaces reserved for road traffic ran over and segregated the potential quality urban spaces within cities. The temporary intervention offers the opportunity to test new spatial configurations that could one day be implemented in this privileged location.