Guinigi Tower, Lucca, Italia.

How sustainable is a tree on a roof?

28/02/2015

Urban trees provide a lot of positive things in urban environments: they increase the biodiversity; clear the air up by fixing solid particles in suspension and CO2 and releasing O2; retain the ground and prevent the erosion of soils; and protect the pedestrians from the wind and sun. They are also a meeting point: people have traditionally met under a tree to talk, discuss, legislate, judge or trade. A popular recent trend is including trees in buildings as a way to make them more sustainable. Even on roofs. But, how sustainable is a tree on a roof?

Tudanca cattle parade in Santander

cows

13/06/2014

The cultural and social memory is also a memory of the lived landscape. It’s a tool which lets us protect, manage and create our landscapes. The extensive farming has determined the original use of land in the valleys of Cantabria and the structure of plots, the architecture and the local network of villages and settlements. Among the different cattle species which live in the valleys, the Tudanca cow is a regional cattle whose value and interest is not only genetic and biological but also a character trait of the local culture of the inner valleys in Cantabria.

End of the city. Alcobendas (Madrid)

end of the city

10/04/2014

The limit of a city is a cultural and social construction: the city tends to grow over the agricultural land, but in western cities this process is not because of the need for housing but an economic process that transforms the lands into a consumer good. This agricultural land lacks a special protection but in return it provides food and resources to the society, and it’s part of the cities’ success. Is it possible to harmonize the urban growth and the preservation of the agricultural land?

Historic Centre of Valencia: from Serranos to Micalet

the city

10/03/2014

What is a city? As a social construction, the city is an inhabited territory, lived by an urban society, where different uses, politics and activities from those that happen in a rural settlement are found. What’s more, the definition of the city is still today a preferential subject of study for the architecture, landscape, planning, geography, sociology, laws or economy. Here is our little approach.

Salburua wetlands, Vitoria-Gasteiz Green Belt

green infrastructure in the city

14/10/2013

Just like urban infrastructures provide with basic services to the city -water, sewerage, electricity or gas supplies, for instance-, the urban green areas -if they are well proportioned, regularly laid out and interconnected in the territory- could provide with ecosystem services for a better quality of life of the citizens. How is a green infrastructure?

Old stone quarry in Cuchía, Cantabria, 2012.

the industrial landscape

04/10/2013

The industrial landscape -that is, a landscape created by the industrial uses established on the territory- is one of the biggest challenges that the contemporary landscape emerged from the European Landscape Convention needs to face: if every area as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors (Council of Europe, 2000) can be defined as landscape, regardless of its values and quality, how can we introduce the industrial areas, not valued and usually impoverished, into our landscapes? The industrial elements, could they be heritage? Is this heritage an industrial landscape?