To ‘heal’ Vallecas, a suburb of Madrid lacking in green areas and public spaces in which its residents could socialize, the design firm Ecosistema Urbano imagined the Air Trees: three large, cylindrical structures covered with vegetation that act like trees while the real ones just planted along the avenue grow. In the summer, these pavilion-like structures provide temperatures within the small squares inside them that are 8–10 degrees cooler than outside thanks to the phenomenon of evapotranspiration – which is often used in grennhouses – and the use of vaporized water. In these spaces, visitors can sit and chat, watch movies or soccer (one Air Tree has media equipment), and play (another has a small children’s playground). The structures are self-sufficient with regard to energy consumption, due to the installation of lightweight solar panels, which are easily installed and uninstalled so that they can be used elsewhere in the city if the need should arise.
The main goal of this innovative project was to create an atmosphere that invites and promotes activity in an urban public space. “Public spaces belong to everyone and they should act as supports for a number of activities and events. Our proposal is an attempt to make up for the total lack of activity due to irresponsible planning, and it originates in the interest in finding a solution to the problem from the very beginning”, explain the Spanish architects. “We are aware that the best adaptation for a public space is that involving thick and solid trees, a material that cannot be counted on until 15 or 20 years have gone by. Therefore, it was necessary to have an ‘emergency’ action that could operate as a wood would in the future. So the strategy opted for is one of concentration that acts on and adapts specific areas by supplying them with higher climatic comfort and serving thus as the seed of a public space regenerating process”.
What they had in their minds was not a building, but a place for people whose shape is defined by the very activity developed in it at a given time. Three pavilions or trees of air work as supports open to multiple activities chosen by the users. Installed in the non-city as temporary prostheses, they will be used only until the inactivity and climatic adaptation problem is corrected. Once the necessary time has elapsed, these devices should be taken down and the old premises should remain as clearings in the wood.
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