During the 19th century, efforts to improve the quality of urban life focused on creating gardens and parks, marking the beginning of the evolution of landscaping as a modern discipline. However, despite remarkable examples worldwide, excessive structure and artificiality in urban parks have gone against the motivations that gave rise to them. In many cases, their design has resulted in decontextualized and inefficient public spaces that are highly demanding on resources and far from being truly sustainable.
The strict use of geometry and the imposition of species that are difficult to adapt and care for are gradually giving way to a more organic approach to landscaping, tailored to local ecosystems and more efficient in its development and conservation. Native forests embody all these positive aspects. They not only ecologically restore degraded areas but also improve air quality and retain rainwater, creating biodiverse green spaces that deeply connect people with nature. We spoke with Magdalena Valdés, founder and director of Bosko, who explains why native forests are the right path towards conscious and truly ecological landscaping.
José Tomás Franco: To generate fast-growing native forests you use the Akira Miyawaki method of ecological restoration. What does this system consist of, and why is it important in the current context?
Magdalena Valdés (Bosko): The Miyawaki Method is an intensive ecological restoration system. This means that, with the objective of reconstituting a certain reference ecosystem, it aims to imitate the conditions of that ecosystem in its mature version. For example, if the ecosystem corresponds to a temperate forest, the soil conditions and plant species that would exist in that place if there had been no human intervention are observed.
So then, the soil is worked to enhance its oxygenation and enrichment with organic matter, until it reaches certain characteristics that are similar to the soil of a mature temperate forest. Similarly, the possible species are selected from all the strata typical of that ecosystem, and they are planted in high density, that is, from 3 to 5 plants per square meter. In this way, collaboration between the species that have coexisted for hundreds of thousands of years is fostered, and their competition for nutrients and light is stimulated, just as in any forest.
Finally, the soil is covered with a layer of mulch in order to protect it from solar radiation and promote the multiplication of microbiological life in it, which facilitates the interactions of the forest and makes it increasingly complex.
The Miyawaki method makes it possible to recover properties of the original ecosystem and obtain environmental benefits, such as improving air quality, reducing ambient temperature, and filtering and retaining rainwater. However, one of its significant benefits is that it produces native forests with accelerated growth, which translates into highly attractive spaces from a human perspective. It allows us to perceive how degraded soils grow and transform into exuberant forests, which become shelters for biodiversity and people in a short time.
This makes them ideal for installation in urban spaces. Their impact is not only ecological, by capturing CO2 and other pollutants, but also profoundly social, by bringing people closer to the knowledge, attachment, and care of their own natural heritage within the city. Hundreds of Miyawaki forests have been created in cities in Asia and Europe, and now at Bosko, we are doing the same in different parts of Chile.
José Tomás Franco: The concept of restoration is widely used to bring circularity strategies closer to architecture. However, it seems to be limited only to the design of specific projects and the selection and management of their materials. How can ecological restoration help integrate an architectural project into the natural space where it is located and beyond?
Magdalena Valdés (Bosko): Ecological restoration aims to assist in the recovery of degraded, damaged, or destroyed natural environments, rebuild their biodiversity, and restore their ecosystem services.
The development of an architectural project necessarily impacts the location where it is situated and its ecosystem. In this context, acting with conservation logic (when it is a project located in a natural environment with minimal intervention) and following ecological restoration can be valuable perspectives to properly integrate a project into its natural environment and mitigate the intrinsic intervention's consequences.
The Miyawaki system, in particular, is an excellent tool for addressing highly degraded terrain, especially in cities. Due to its high degree of work per square meter, it generates a significant positive impact in the short term, accelerating the repair and recovery of a damaged space and transforming it into a biodiverse nucleus. Our work aims to contribute to imagining a piece of land, a neighborhood, or a city as an integrated and efficient green network of forests and urban vegetation, amplifying its impact and achieving more ambitious socio-environmental objectives with a holistic vision.
Urban forests present an opportunity to reintroduce nature to our cities, creating biodiverse and dynamic sources that can also improve people's quality of life: they purify the air, reduce the effect of heat islands, improve climate resilience, and confer a multitude of well-documented benefits to people's physical and mental health.
José Tomás Franco: Landscaping associated with architectural projects appears to prioritize the selection of "trendy species" for aesthetic purposes, which seems to go against what you propose. How do you approach traditional landscaping differently, and what additional benefits can it provide? To what extent is it possible to manage and accommodate the visual appearance of a Miyawaki forest?
Magdalena Valdés (Bosko): At Bosko, we consider ourselves agents of a distinct type of landscaping that is ecological, aesthetic, and functional, with the aim of achieving a deeper connection between people and nature.
Native forests provide a more sensory type of landscaping that connects people in a more intimate way with nature, providing shelter, shade, intimate spaces, flows, rhythms, sounds, and smells.
The design of a Miyawaki forest can be highly adaptable in its layout, incorporating paths, walkways, empty and full spaces. However, ecological criteria should always be the priority, respecting the "body of forest," which is a minimum area required for nature to flourish and develop properly. We design Miyawaki forests by prioritizing the placement of species inside, creating a rich and diverse forest. For the contour, however, our criteria is more aesthetic in selecting the most attractive native species, such as herbaceous ones with showy flowers, to enhance their wild and dense appearance.
The Miyawaki forests created by the Swiss NGO SUGi, a great collaborator and inspiration for Bosko, for the Vuitton and Moet Chandon Foundation in London, are beautiful examples of the fusion between ecology and aesthetics.
Another example recently executed by Bosko in Chile is the Adriana Hoffmann Native Garden at the Mirador Interactive Museum (MIM), where the design incorporates shapes and paths, along with an adequate distribution of species and heights, creating welcoming and attractive spaces for visitors.
José Tomás Franco: Could you explain the process for restoring a "new soil"? What factors should be taken into consideration, and how long does it typically take for the soil to be restored?
Magdalena Valdés (Bosko): The soil improvement process begins with observation and analysis. The objective of a Miyawaki forest is to imitate the reference ecosystem in its mature state. This means projecting the same soil to intervene, as if there had been no human intervention. In a space where a forest should have existed, the soil should be loosened, oxygenated, and full of microbiological life associated with bacteria and fungi, as well as organic matter. Additionally, it should be covered with leaf litter typical of the forests, including twigs, decayed trunks, countless leaves, and dead insects. The mission is to loosen the soil to oxygenate it, incorporate organic matter in a dose that allows reaching an adequate minimum for the healthy development of the forest, and cover it with mulch to simulate the protective leaf litter on the forest floor.
The duration of this process, which is key in the creation of a Miyawaki forest, can range from 3 days to 2 weeks depending on factors such as the complexity of the soil and the size of the future forest.
José Tomás Franco: How have you seen the evolution of your first forests and regenerative landscaping projects after a few years? What kind of benefits can you start to notice?
Magdalena Valdés (Bosko): Our first Miyawaki forest, which covers an area of 280 m2 in Pirque (Chile), was planted three and a half years ago. Currently, its canopy reaches over 8 meters in height, largely comprised of maytenus and soap bark trees. The forest boasts high biodiversity, with approximately 80% of native flora species surviving, and serving as a thriving habitat for a range of birds and insects including quebracho butterflies, giant hummingbirds, and beetles.
Its soil is soft, humid and covered with organic litter. Its temperature is considerably lower than the temperature outside, and upon entering its empty center, which is specially designed for the Japanese practice of "forest bathing" or Shinrin-yoku, one experiences a sense of peace and disconnection.
Since its planting, this Miyawaki forest has reduced water consumption by 60% and does not require maintenance, except for personal interests. As Akira Miyawaki said, "the best management of a forest is its non-management."
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