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XILEMA

Design: Nicolás Olmos and Marcelo de Medeiros

Construction: Nicolás Olmos and Marcelo de Medeiros

One of the 10 finalist projects presented for the First Granini Sustainable Innovation Contest. Where each finalist was given 5kg of peach seed to generate a proposal

Xilema also known as firewood or wood, is a lignified conduction plant tissue that transports liquids from one part of the vascular plants to another. It transports water, mineral salts and other nutrients from the roots to the leaves of plants.

One of the most fascinating things about nature is that it doesn't produce garbage. Just as you hear. Each element of nature has a why and is part of the cycle of life. Garbage is a human invention. Let's walk in a supermarket. 90% of what we see there will be consumed and then discarded. Yes, there are things that can be recycled (if they are recycled), but most will be garbage. Now let's keep in mind that this is only one of the thousands of supermarkets in a city. We talk about tons and tons of garbage. Everything produced by the human being.

Over time, cities have been profoundly transformed by increasing their limits beyond the urban and with the unstoppable development of transport infrastructures, we can say that there is almost no place on the planet that has not been anthropized by the hand of man. But, the planning of the territory and its management based on protected natural spaces and urban or developable spaces, has put in check the survival of other species and ecosystems close to the great megalopolises. After the anthropization of the territory by the hand of man and the uncontrolled growth of large cities at the expense of the natural ecosystem and landscape, it is time to return nature to cities.

So how can we coexist with the environment that surrounds us, without generating garbage and taking advantage of what nature provides us? One of the most striking elements in an architectural structure is its way of integrating with the environment. In general, a good building is considered to be one that has the ability to blend in well with the space that surrounds it, be it a historic urban case or a recently created urbanization. When this is transferred to natural environments, the importance of integration acquires a value that goes far beyond pure aesthetic pleasure. This is because a structure integrated in nature necessarily implies respect for the environment. This translates into less impact on the surrounding landscape and greater efficiency of resources than the building in question makes use of.

Xilema is a modular, biobased, compostable and multiple environmental impact system designed to integrate architectural projects with the surrounding environment. From the crushed peach stone powder we intend to generate a solid compound, bound by natural biopolymers from renewable sources, that is, we will not use any glue or bonding medium that is not environmentally responsible.

Based on the molecular structure of the xylem of a plant, we propose hexagonal modules that fulfill the functions of:

Recover rainwater, thermally insulate the building, grow vegetables, channel the air and offer refuge to birds

depending on how the element is arranged in addition to providing a parametric design to the surface where said module is located, saving material coating costs.