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Nature In the City Barri Studio
80 Plays4 years ago
Conversation highlights:
- Everything is interconnected. So at the end, the relationships between plants, insects, and even humans, are crucial for our work, especially in an urban surrounding.
- We created a garden of pollinators that allows insects to gather and colonize.
- When we see butterflies in the neighborhood it means that we are recovering, and those vegetation communities are working well. It's like a biodiversity parameter for a healthy environment.
- In response to climate change, landscape architects have to design with nature, not against it.
- We did a study of the bird species of the area and their migration behavior then designed a rooftop with plant communities suitable for those nesting birds.
- Nature is complex, vivid, random, diverse...
- With our designs we want to bring back wild, uncontrolled nature into our cities - it’s much better for the soul.
GUEST / JORDI BARRI / BARRI STUDIO BARCELONA
HOST / MATT MORLEY / WELLBEING CHAMPION
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Transcript
Introduction to Wellbeing and Sustainability
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to episode 38 of the Green and Healthy Places podcast, in which we explore the themes of wellbeing and sustainability in real estate and interiors.
Meet Jordi Bari: Background and Philosophy
00:00:20
Speaker
This episode, I'm back in Barcelona talking to Jordi Bari, founder of Bari Studio. I practice the bridges, the world of landscaping, architecture and ecological thinking. After a degree in landscape architecture, Jordi took a postgrad in design studies from Harvard
00:00:37
Speaker
and are still involved in his family's plant and nursery business. So he was destined to do interesting work, at least from my perspective.
The Role of Green Roofs and Pollinator Gardens
00:00:44
Speaker
Our conversation covers the role of green roofs in bringing nature back to our cities. The idea of what he calls butterflies in the neighborhood as a parameter for a healthy environment. How his team designed pollinator gardens and gardens specifically for migrating bird species to nest in. The interconnectedness of nature's systems of plants, insects, and animal life.
00:01:06
Speaker
He's a cerebral thinker with big ideas of how to improve the cities of our future. So I hope you enjoy the conversation. If you do, hit subscribe. Both of our contact details are in the show notes. Naramas is Jordi Bali of Bali Studio in Barcelona.
00:01:23
Speaker
Jordy, great to have you here. So you grew up surrounded by plants. It's obviously, it's in your blood, it's in your DNA, your family had a plant nursery in
Growing Up in a Plant Nursery: A Personal Journey
00:01:35
Speaker
Catalonia. I just wondered how you think now about that experience, like how it's influenced you and the knowledge that was perhaps handed down to you from the previous generation, like how do you live with that today and how has it helped you get to where you are?
00:01:55
Speaker
Hi Matt, nice to meet you here and I will try to answer you even though my English maybe is not as perfect. But as you said, well, yeah, I grew up in a plant nursery that was from my grandfather and my father and now is grown also by my brother. Well, in terms of how it was handed down.
00:02:17
Speaker
is the fact that you have been always grown surrounded by plants. And so I mean that botanical names, usually that's something very funny, even with my friends, because they will also always tell me, well, but you know all the names. It is just, it's something, it's like a lexicon that you've been always surrounded by that.
00:02:41
Speaker
So you know very much about botanic and also about the processes going on in the nursery, all that materials that you were used also to touch. Because I remember when I was a kid, my father, not forced me, but obliged me in summer to work since I was from 10 to 14.
00:03:05
Speaker
one month in summer from eight to one we had to be in the nursery working even like you know taking all those weeds out and doing those processes so at the end it has been very much influential in in me even
00:03:23
Speaker
I remember those winters where we went to those nursery with the Christmas trees and even we have to deliver it in the neighborhood. So at the end, it's very, very rooted in my childhood. And obviously it has helped me now to understand much more about how those plans evolve, how those plans behave and all that.
Promoting Biodiversity in Landscape Design
00:03:53
Speaker
It's interesting hearing your response because it occurs to me that there's such a difference between a family-owned business, so having parents or one or other parent who own a business and
00:04:09
Speaker
and they can get you involved, they can still get their children involved in their business versus someone who may be running a company, but it's not theirs. And so when they're on holiday, that's it. They're on holiday. Whereas as a family business, in a sense, there's less holiday, right? So you will always
00:04:27
Speaker
getting involved even during the summer when everybody else was perhaps trying to take a break. I like that idea. So clearly that's built into your heritage and how you grew up and I'm really interested in how you've taken that and built upon it to create in a way like your particular style and when I research
00:04:50
Speaker
work that you're doing now, it's pretty clear that there is a lot of thinking behind the plant strategies that you put forward. There's clearly, in addition to aesthetics, there's this functional side and sort of an ecological concept behind
00:05:11
Speaker
the proposals that you're putting forward. Can you talk to us a bit about that, about how you try to promote biodiversity, for example, via specific combinations of plants, almost giving your projects a higher purpose beyond just sort of decorative landscaping? Yeah, well, at the end of what we are very much
00:05:39
Speaker
not that usually like those shrubberies are much more concerned about when they bloom and what kind of color of what kind of texture do you have that obviously also that is also considered but we are trying to to be more now more focused and to go deep in understanding the relationships between
00:06:04
Speaker
those plans and those plans community and how they work together. So in order to solve sometimes some problems, for example, when you have those trees that are attacked by aphids or so maybe you can create like a community that enhance and
00:06:25
Speaker
can capture a little bit the attention from ladybugs that attack those aphids. So at the end, it's kind of a symbiosis that we're trying to achieve here in order to bring something more than not just aesthetics. Or for example, to understand how there are plans that work better in carbon fixed
00:06:52
Speaker
This is like a cotonic ester that works very much in capturing CO2. At the end, it's trying to be and work a little bit beyond the aesthetics and going more into an ecological approach and functionality.
00:07:09
Speaker
When we bring that into the city, we not just give and bring beauty to the city, but also like some ecological aspects that I think that even they are more didactic, even for people too. So at the end, we are all interconnected. So at the end, those relationships between plants, insects, and even humans, at the end, how they work altogether in an urban concept, in an urban
00:07:39
Speaker
surrounding you know so it's all bad that we are interested in working. It sounds quite similar to some of the rewilding projects that are going on in the UK for example where people are landowners often looking to reintroduce certain species that have become extinct as a way to promote greater diversity in the
00:08:04
Speaker
animal world around them and find that balance that perhaps has been lost due to the impact of industrialization and basically humans on the planet.
Urban Plaza in Santu Lalia: Organic Community Spaces
00:08:15
Speaker
So let's dig into one of your projects as an example because I think designing a garden or creating private spaces is one thing and we can cover that later. But I'm really interested in
00:08:31
Speaker
the role that landscape designers can play in, let's call it like place-making, so sort of public-private partnerships, public squares, places that make up the urban fabric of a city that in a sense you're designing and creating these green spaces, right? So you're bringing some greenery back in. I was looking at the
00:08:56
Speaker
the town square project you did in Santu Lalia. I think you're starting that one next year, right? So can you describe the different components that go into that project? I mean, I'm guessing there's beyond greenery, there's got to be a focus on kids and activities because it's a public park. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, it's a kind of a public plaza. Let's say at the end,
00:09:21
Speaker
the space is divided in different areas. And also what is characteristic about this Urban Plaza is its organic forms, it's more like rounded. And what we also wanted to recreate was much more about the sensation of the memory that has the people of the town when they go to the river and how we can try to bring that sensation into that Urban Plaza.
00:09:49
Speaker
So at the end it was like divided in like what we call like three different areas that one is called like the dense wood. So where we plant a dense wood that recreates a little bit the woods and the
00:10:05
Speaker
the trees that we have in those areas that surrounds that town. Then there is a flexible performative surface where those different activities can happen there. And also there is the kids area is almost like a mosque when you do like a park or plazas because at the end they are the
00:10:35
Speaker
the users and so we have to bring and also it's not just bringing the functionality of the playgrounds but also a more deductive way also for them so that they start to understand how to deal with nature there. So we usually those games that we plan for them are in that case
00:11:03
Speaker
done from Robinia wood in order to, instead of plastic and all that materials. But also there is another layer. It's like, we say like our own layer that is related with what we talked before about the vegetation. So it's true that there are some zones where we are more urban, more attached to the urban. That vegetation, it's more about more
00:11:31
Speaker
let's say like more botanical in terms of more aesthetic, but with those ecological relationships. But there is a lot of layer of vegetations that tries to emulate kind of the river vegetation that we have in those river beds with those trees and these shrubs, down shrubs that happens there.
00:12:00
Speaker
So also the vegetation layers are quite important for our designs. That's what we are doing in that proposal. So at the end, it's not such a big park. It's just like, let's say like a small plaza, but what we want is like people get embraced, you know, get surrounded by all these vegetation that we have planned.
00:12:27
Speaker
Then you have other projects such as the one in Blanis, I think also starting in 2022. What sort of techniques or strategies can you use to create a small hub, like a meeting place for the local community?
Community Park in Blanis: Ecological and Aesthetic Design
00:12:43
Speaker
How does landscaping connect with that bigger strategic concept of
00:12:50
Speaker
creating a meeting place for locals and promoting a sense of community for the people who live in that area. Well, it's true that in that case, in that park, there was a strong neighborhood association
00:13:09
Speaker
And it was already like a kind of a meeting point for them, but it was totally disrupted and not very pleasant to go. So our strategy there, obviously because we are fully
00:13:25
Speaker
aspects was to create a topographical movement. And with that slope, a little slope, a very soft slope, we collect all that rain water towards what we call a bioswale. And that bioswale acts like a spine.
00:13:50
Speaker
and in terms of it vertebrates the whole space so that bioswale spine at the end becomes like the place where you can walk along and the different zones of that parks are attached to that spine so in another aspect in terms of ecological approach also was what we call the garden of pollinators
00:14:20
Speaker
And at the end, this garden, also like this lush planting with diversity of plants, also holds and allows the insects to pollinate. I don't know how you say that, but in terms also we plant some oat tail for insects. And all this also with a little
00:14:48
Speaker
construction, like a little, let's say like a social building, where all the community can gather. And at the end, they can do activities related without pollinators, gardens there, or according to the nature that we are bringing there, or according to that irrigation system and all that spine. So at the end, it becomes a ludic
00:15:18
Speaker
an ecological park. And obviously, if you do that in the two ways, like in a more aesthetic and beauty, but also like a more performative and ecologically functional, I think that this mix makes that people wants to go there. And at the end, we have seen now in the pandemic that parks have become like a very important place even for healing,
00:15:47
Speaker
minds and for the health of the people. So I think that by combining these two aspects, like the beauty and the ecological, as we always try to do, people will be pleased to gather there and enjoy the park.
00:16:06
Speaker
I think that's where what you do starts to overlap with what I do in terms of creating green indoor spaces, but really a lot of the same concepts are the same about giving people access to nature, even perhaps in an indoor environment if there's no
00:16:24
Speaker
various studio design park around the corner. But you've written also, I know about the concept of butterflies in the neighborhood or perhaps like trying to bring butterflies back to the neighborhood, just in terms of the insects that plants can
Butterflies as Indicators of Healthy Ecosystems
00:16:41
Speaker
attract. I mean, we do hear stories of
00:16:44
Speaker
small insects that have been attracted back into central London. I think it was on the rooftop of a Japanese bank-owned building in London a few months ago that there was an amazing story of a
00:16:57
Speaker
particular plant that had attracted certain insects back into the center of the city that it was just completely unexpected, but a very positive sign. From your perspective, what are we looking out for? What are signs of progress in terms of nature slowly being invited back in to cohabit with us in city centers? How is your concept of butterflies in the neighborhood? How does it relate to that?
00:17:25
Speaker
Well, at the end it's true that when we say butterflies in the neighborhood is our goal. It's what we would like to see even in a city.
00:17:35
Speaker
And if we start to see them, it means that we are recovering and the nature there and those, let's say like those vegetation communities are working well. And it's like a kind of biodiversity parameter of the good quality of the environment. So obviously,
00:18:03
Speaker
at the end is like trying to recover
00:18:06
Speaker
all those lost areas that we have in the city that can be like a place where this nature is brought back. And that can happen very much into the roofs. Here in Barcelona, there are many projects now that are concerned with
00:18:34
Speaker
with the green roofs, but not just as it was before maybe that it was just like a green roof in order to a climate or an insulation aspect, but much more like to bring nature back. So if we bring all those insects back, all those plants back, is what I said before at the end. It's like trying to have a better balance
00:19:02
Speaker
between human beings and nature, animals and insects. And at the end, everything is related and everything is more rich.
00:19:13
Speaker
For example, when you have in the city those street plantings or street beds that are just planted with one species, that doesn't bring diversity. And if you plant a diversity of species, then it brings other communities there and that brings life. So at the end, we have to
00:19:38
Speaker
force or we have to lay the subtract in order that this magic of those communities happens there. And I think that is all what we are trying to do here in the studio. And what we think that cities should bring, you know, they should bring nature, but not just like a green thing, but much more about an ecological thing.
00:20:08
Speaker
So that's, that's what we, when we call butterflies into the neighborhood is what we would like to see. When we open the doors of our houses, we would like to see butterflies and birds and even, you know, you'd say it's ladybugs, all that people, all that, all those animals that interact with us. So that means like we are in a healthy environment.
00:20:31
Speaker
I know you're interested in what's been done in Asia as well in that sense.
Global Perspectives: Asia's Sponge Cities
00:20:36
Speaker
So if we take a step back and sort of look at the regions and how different regions deal with this in a different way, obviously we're talking from effectively a Mediterranean location, a Mediterranean climate, but in terms of
00:20:49
Speaker
Asia. Have you seen Singapore obviously being sort of the leading example, but I'm sure there are many others. Are there things, lessons that can be learned in that sense from what's been done in Asia or are there no universal principles? Is it very specific to each region according to whether it's tropical or dry, hot or cold? Yeah. Well, obviously, every region has their own
00:21:19
Speaker
own problems and their own different strategies to be tackled. But it's true that in Asia, when we're talking about the concept about sponge cities or porous cities, it's a way to confront the climate change that everybody now is involved in. We are talking and it's obviously a major concern for humankind. But the way that they have done that there is obviously
00:21:50
Speaker
than in the Mediterranean. There in Asia, there are a lot of floods. So at the end, instead of using the way to plan the cities in a more engineering way, that it was, okay, everything should be channelized.
00:22:09
Speaker
like concrete channels in order to avoid the water flood from one place. So landscape architects can bring another vision and that is why it's so important in terms of a major role in transforming the cities because the way to approach to those problems are totally different than the engine.
00:22:33
Speaker
And now we see, for example, not in Asia, but in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles River that was totally channelized with concrete. Now there are many projects that are dealing on how to get rid of that concrete and how to bring the stream or the river back. So at the end, it's like an obvious concept. It's like in that case in Asia, what they're doing is like they are planning huge parks
00:23:02
Speaker
that they become sponge parks. When they have floods, they can retain, they can hold this water, and then as a sponge, they can bring it back to the river in a certain way, more control. In terms of the Mediterranean climate, it's probably totally different because at the end, well, it works the same, but in a different
00:23:30
Speaker
and rain parameter. So here what we want is to hold that water as much as we can because we have a lack of water. So we have to retain that water somehow and then to apply to try to irrigate with the water that we collect in order to not to abuse and not to, let's say like,
00:24:00
Speaker
the aquifer that we have tried to not to stress it. So it's better if we can use the water that we collect from the rainfall than not using with dwells or from, let's say, the municipality water. So it's a different approach in terms of rainfalls, but it's the same at the end.
00:24:29
Speaker
We, for the climate change, we have to design with nature and not against nature. And I think that that concept should be very, we should bear it very much in mind because it's going to be a major theme for the future of design in terms of landscape architecture. It's almost as if having that relationship with nature
00:24:58
Speaker
The last thing you'd want to do is to harm it. Or in fact, what you want to do is to do great work and great work requires now that you also protect and do whatever you can to help and reduce the damage.
00:25:13
Speaker
that's being inflicted on nature. And again, similar principles behind biophilic design. It's not just about creating green spaces. It's no good if it's green and looks natural, but it's actually having a negative impact on the environment that just makes no sense. It's not consistent. It's not a coherent approach. And I can really see that in the way you talk about designing spaces or outdoor green spaces that are
00:25:40
Speaker
respectful of nature, that bring nature in and that do whatever they can to help it in a way to stop the negative impact that humans are having. But you have an interesting perspective because you also work across industries in a sense, both from architecture, buildings, right the way through to outdoor landscaping projects.
Integrating Nature in Mallorca's Residential Projects
00:26:07
Speaker
And your project in
00:26:08
Speaker
Mallorca in particular, which is a residential project clearly, there it seems to be a really interesting example of how you can use buildings and in this case architectural designs
00:26:24
Speaker
also to attract nature back into the city. So rather than it being an outdoor green space, you're effectively designing a residential building as I understand it. Similar principles, but how have you gone about that? What techniques have you used to attempt to connect the future residents of that building with the nature around them?
00:26:50
Speaker
Well, the idea we wanted to do like kind of an exercise of doing like a research of how a building can be not just a building, but could be something more. And in terms of ecologically, how we can work in the sea. And what we do,
00:27:12
Speaker
What we did was kind of a study of the birds, of the area and the migration and the behavior of those birds. And we established our rooftop as an ecological and plant community suitable for nesting birds. And in that sense, we wanted to design
00:27:40
Speaker
a building that, for example, the staircase was a little bit detached. Well, it was a little bit separated from the building. And that staircase could work as a lookout for those birds that were nesting on the rooftop. So our goal was not just making a garden for a building,
00:28:08
Speaker
but that that building become a subtract of an ecological real function. And by those rooftops that sometimes they are even not abandoned, but they are flat and without very much life or just covered by green species that they are sedumes or something related to that.
00:28:37
Speaker
We wanted something more. We wanted to make it a little bit more vivid. Imagine that if they were stepping stones on the city for birds in order to make them more easy to nest around our cities if we want to bring them back to the city. That was our goal. And that's why also when we tried to design
00:29:07
Speaker
And we have all these in mind when we want to do, even if it's a building, a park, or even a garden. At the end, it's a matter of scale. For example, for a literal garden, it could be more related with insects, but if you are in a city, it's migration of birds and all what is related. And at the end,
00:29:33
Speaker
At the end it's very interesting because if you put that substrate or let's say like the soil in these rooftops, those birds will bring different seeds and they will grow there and you don't even know what will grow there and that is the beauty of it.
Ecological Design Principles and Avoiding Over-Control
00:29:55
Speaker
The question is, what will grow there? And we don't know. So if we give some freedom to random, I think that life is also about that.
00:30:08
Speaker
Well, it's not just life, but in a sense, yeah, it's the wonderful part of nature, right, is that wildness to it. You don't want to try and control it too much. Just imagine if more and more buildings like yours in Mallorca were built, right, then suddenly it starts to become, make a real, real change on the landscape. Well, yeah, at the end it's done. Imagine that you have those buildings and the kids that are on the building, they look out to them, how they nest,
00:30:38
Speaker
They can, at the end, try also to be didactic for them and bringing the nature to the kids also because they're going to be our future. So at the end, we are responsible to build their future. And if we are applying those considerations, those parameters, and these approaches that are more nature-related,
00:31:05
Speaker
and more ecologically, not just aesthetics. I think that everything can be more interesting and complex. And I think that at the end is what is life about. Complex, vivid, random, freedom, diversity, all this, it becomes a little bit more even funny. It's what we call also, there is something in the studio that we always talk, as you said before you mentioned,
00:31:34
Speaker
butterflies in the neighborhood, but also, things should be ecologically funky. Because at the end, this is what, I don't know, we consider that is more pleasant and more funny. And it's like a kind of a developmental for us, what we plan and what we design. Not too perfect, in other words. Exactly. At the end, you know, like those French gardens that they just
00:32:04
Speaker
to do the topiary and the manicured and controlled. That was because it was a relation between the power and the control of nature. What we want is to bring back this lousy and this uncontrolled nature that I think at the end is better for the soul.
00:32:25
Speaker
I love it. There's so much behind what you do. And I think that was what I wanted to try and get out from this conversation. I appreciate it. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and all the deep insight and knowledge that goes into doing what you do.
Connect with Bari Studio on Instagram
00:32:41
Speaker
We'll link to BarryStudio.com. That's with two R's. Are you, in terms of social media, where are you most active at the moment?
00:32:49
Speaker
Well, probably we are very engaged in Instagram because at the end, it's true that when we want to publish what we are doing, also the image becomes very important and Instagram maybe is like the media.
00:33:05
Speaker
That works better for us. So you can see us there. And we post pictures, but we also post drawings. So we post many things there. And I think that is the best way to approach to us. Awesome.