A friendlier and more sustainable environment: landscapes come to the office

Landscapists and Architects Advocate Using Nature to Make Sustainability a Cornerstone of Projects Both at Companies' Headquarters and Elsewhere

Miguel Ángel García Vega

There is a division between those who say there is a division and those who say there is not one. There is a division between those who think that landscaping is just a façade and those who believe that it even improves productivity. The former are content with having head offices surrounded by hedges, plants, or trees of any species. A green boundary that workers contemplate so that the hours might perhaps pass by more quickly. There are others, however, who make landscaping a core principle. The Navarrese architect, Patxi Mangado, notes that it has been there since the era of Classical Greece and the Parthenon. "A landscape is an essential driver of productivity." We err when we live locked inside of it. We must stay in touch with the environment." He adds: "It must be done properly. Efficiency has been misinterpreted. What truly enthralls us is when a landscape enters a building. It cannot be something extra, an addition. It must be at the forefront of the project." These words are the points that form the lines connecting landscaping and sustainability. 

In his collection of essays The Betrayed Testaments, Czech writer Milan Kundera (1929–2023) described what he called the Chopin strategy. He was in his nocturnal sessions, preludes, and studies. They arise just like fragments or sketches—noted architecture critic Carlos Martí (1948–2020)—where the composer outlines the essential features of the work without having to resort to touch-ups or additions. These would be like unnecessary words. "We need to distinguish between the landscaping associated with refining outdoor spaces, the benefits of which are well known, and nature incorporated into the design of interiors, understanding plant features in the same way as contemporary building materials," reflected Juan Herreros, perhaps one of the most renowned architects in Spain and the person behind the extraordinary Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway. There is an abundance of literature regarding the benefits, for example, on mental health by incorporating sustainability, landscaping, and nature into the mental wellness care of employees at companies. Less stress, greater resilience, better dialogue with colleagues. Painter Joan Miró (1893–1983), as told by art expert Daniel Giralt-Miracle, repeated over and over again that he had learned everything from nature, from careful observation of the Earth, the plant world. He described how his struggle was not to copy the Earth but to understand it to poetically convey it through painting. Without making noise. Architect Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) claimed that for him everything came "from the grand book of nature." A iconic example of the application of his theory is Villa Quijano, popularly known as "El Capricho," in the Cantabrian city of Comillas, whose rooms are designed in full reverence for nature, specifically, the movement of the sun throughout the day, like the sunflowers on the tiles covering the façade.

These years, perhaps, may have another name. It may be sustainability. It may be a landscape. We leave behind Catalonia to move on to Madrid. On its outskirts, Carlos Lamela has built the headquarters of one of the world's leading aerospace companies. The aesthetics move at the same speed as the aircrafts occupying the hangars. It is not essential. "Landscaping brings nature into the offices." We are all aware of its benefits in terms of productivity and health. But at the same time, it helps to foster a sense of community. Employees can socialize, talk about their projects, or simply relax in the green areas, rest areas, or water currents; a visual breath, so to speak," according to the Madrid architect. "It is also a symbol of the company's culture and values," he underlined. 

We enter one of the most secret spaces of architecture in the world. The Apple headquarters designed by Norman Foster, perhaps the most influential architect of the last half century, in Cupertino, California. Careful study does not provide any information beyond what can be found on its website. A space, shaped as a circular ring, known as Ring's floors, covering 71 hectares where green space has increased from 20% to 80%, with about six kilometers of trails for exercise, 9,000 trees, including oaks and native orchards, meadows, outdoor terraces, and even a pond. It also includes a huge patio with olive trees. This way of viewing the headquarters of companies has been leaving its unique seeds of memory. Aristotle said that an acorn was the potential of an oak. Under the shadow of that potential, Foster designed the then Cepsa Tower (2017) for the new "city" of Madrid, as part of the Four Towers.

On another scale and closer, the Girona-based study RCR Arquitectes (Ramón Vilalta, Carme Pigem and Rafael Aranda), winners of the 2017 Pritzker Prize—the most prestigious award in the world of architecture—agreed in a note with the PhD in architecture Josep María Montaner, that "it is vital to rename the landscape, which goes from being a beautiful postcard or a mere panoramic view to being understood as an environment, ecotope [biotope in ecological terms] with its biodiversity. A habitat where people, animals, and plants live." And they remarked: "The landscape must be repositioned as the center." A photograph of its own environment. They work out of Girona, which connects, like a funicular, the high mountains of the Pyrenees with the exceptional volcanic landscapes of La Garrotxa and its Natural Park. 

Of course, the headquarters must place sustainable criteria at the core. Memory is like moving secret trunks. Some get lost. Who remembers them? But Central Park in New York was the contribution in 1857 by landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) and Calvert Vaux (1824–1895). These days, companies like New York's West 8 have reopened "that grand book of nature" by Gaudí and are responsible for the innovative renovation of the Madrid Río park. Their creative director, Daniel Vasini, speaks on the phone from the Big Apple. "Nature in buildings [this includes, of course, the main offices] has two paths: it is either reconstructed or intertwined with the existing structure."  Architecture is sketches, lines, and numbers. "Sustainability entails balancing three aspects: economic, social, and environmental in a way that creates equitable, viable, and livable environments," explained Esperanza Marrodán, a professor at the School of Architecture at the University of Navarra. Landscapes are something physical and simultaneously emotional, in her view. "Designing workspaces with this mindset opens the path for sustainable action, while also offering up that other emotional dimension as a gift," she observed. 

Perhaps there should be a new color: Campo Baeza white. Its essential paint. Alberto Campo Baeza, winner of the 2021 National Architecture Prize, is a member of this "Golden Age of Spanish Architecture." His works look for a home in memories stay there to live. The Caja de Granada, the Casa del Infinito in Cádiz, the Conservation Center for the Louvre (Lievin, France), and the headquarters of The Fitth in Miami, which will be completed this year. "We wanted to build the most beautiful office building in the world in that city," reads their website. "As Plato told us that beauty is the radiance of truth, we can be certain that we have always started with truth as our foundation. We have built a simple and logical building." Campo Baeza is Campo Baeza. His work forges a mixture of orthodoxy and heterodoxy. "I don't believe in sustainability but rather in an architect's careful and slow attention to nature," he noted in his Madrid office, on the edge of the Chueca neighborhood. Another way to view the landscape.

Miguel Ángel García Vega
He has been writing for EL PAÍS for some 25 years, currently for Cultura, Negocios, El País Semanal, Retina, Suplementos Especiales, and Ideas. His texts have been republished by La Nación (Argentina), La Tercera (Chile) or Le Monde (France). He has received, among others, the AECOC, Accenture, Antonio Moreno Espejo (CNMV) and Ciudad de Badajoz awards.