They are among us. And they greatly outnumber us. Three thousand billion individuals, grouped in millions of communities, organised into authentic nations. But we hardly notice their presence. They – trees – in their communities – the forests – live, grow, die and regenerate in silence. But more than ever before, we realise that we can’t do without them. Not just for the economy, not just for buildings, not just for tourism. For our survival as a species.
humus® has brought together the testimonials of those who study, take care of, observe and listen to forests in this issue. Like the scientist Giorgio Vacchiano, a forest management specialist, who states that woods are “places of connection”, and that working with woods is “a way of mending ties”. In his essay ‘The Eight Forests’, in the section Focus on, he illustrates to the readers of humus why they – the trees – can do without us, but we cannot do without them. And he offers eight virtuous examples of aware forest management, eight concrete experiences that have improved their – and our – lives.
Architecture is also enjoying an increasingly more aware dialogue with the forests: living in or near the woods is the focus of the work of the architects from Studio Noa, who have made some very interesting structural and stylistic choices. Vice versa, taking the wood into the cities is the topic tackled by the French landscape designer Catherine Mosbach, as we can see from her projects for the Jardin Botanique in Bordeaux and Taichung Central Park in Taiwan. The dialogue between urban landscape and trees was investigated in the Seventies by the architect Cesare Leonardi, who together with Franca Stagi left a precious legacy, the manual L’architettura degli alberi (Lazy Dog, 2018): humus® followed the tracks of the two designers to try and understand their vision better.
humus® also met Haley Mellin, the artist and champion of the forests who founded Art into Acres, a project that has already saved 30 million hectares of virgin forests. Mellin draws and paints in some of the world’s oldest forests: in Amazonia, Guatemala and the USA. She portrays them in their details, their atmospheres, seeking to identify with those powerful and magical places as if in meditation. And she is not alone: many artists, designers, researchers have found inspiration in the woods, choosing to take care of them, including the artist Federico Tosi, the designers that recover the trees felled by the storm Vaia, the schools that, through the ‘Semi di futuro’ initiative, grow and replant the most suitable trees for coping with climate change in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennine National Park.
Listening to the woods, conserving them, taking inspiration for building more sympathetic and resilient communities: these are the seeds this third issue of humus would like to sow. Inviting us to rediscover their unstoppable and silent vitality, on the trail of Ettore Sottsass who, in Di chi sono le case vuote? (Adelphi 2021), tells of an almost mystic childhood experience in the woods: “In those far-away summer days, the wood spread slowly, its boundaries disappearing… I realised that it was inhabited more and more by sudden apparitions, as shiny as the stars falling from the sky… The fragrant darkness of that forest was an endless spectacle, made of unforeseen events, explosive events, unexpected combinations, inexplicable logics, and I would get lost in there.”
