An applied research project in Buenos Aires brings fresh eyes to urban vacancy.
By Jimena Martignoni
Custom bird feeders are one of the few designed additions in the lot. During “open” days, visitors fill them. Image by Estudio Bulla.
In Argentina, an urban vacant lot is referred to as baldío. Derived from the Arabic term b??ilah, meaning ?vain, valueless, or uncultivated,? this is also the name of an experimental project by Estudio Bulla, a fast-growing landscape architecture office in Buenos Aires. Initiated during the pandemic, Baldío I and II are two different stages of one intellectually rigorous and environmentally committed work in progress taking place in a residential area of the city.
The project involves landscape architects, artists, and the work of the architect and environmental artist Martin Huberman. Baldío I (2020?2022) was a three-year-long botanical survey and experimentation with spontaneous vegetation appearing in a lot after demolition and site preparation. (Planned new construction was delayed by the pandemic and new land-use proposals.) ?The first year and a half was only about identifying and quantifying species that sprouted and grew according to [their] own logic. Afterward, we tested some of them in our projects and also brought in low-maintenance plants to see how they?d behave in the lot?s naturally created ecosystem under zero-maintenance conditions,? says Gerardo Raffo, a landscape architect with Estudio Bulla. To the 15 plant ...