CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati has built a garden pavilion for four seasons, which is being presented at Milan Design Week. Called Living Nature, the pavilion uses energy flow controls to allow spring, summer, autumn and winter to coexist under the same roof. The pavilion is still on view in Piazza del Duomo, Milan’s main square until April 25, 2018. 

Image © Salone del Mobile

The Living Nature pavilion, which stems from a concept by CRA and Studio Römer, makes use of an innovative energy management system for climate control, with green spaces curated by Patrick Blanc and Flavio Pollano. The project embodies the values of Salone del Mobile’s 2018 Manifesto, exploring a new relationship between nature and design. It will also play host to a series of talks on nature and sustainability with an international array of speakers.

Image © Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti

The 500 square-meter, 5-meter high pavilion houses four natural, climatic microcosms, corresponding to the four seasons. Visitors will be immersed in nature as they wander through winter, spring, summer and autumn. Each season will be enriched by a display of familiar design objects by some of the most prestigious furniture brands, including Arper, Cappellini, Ethimo, Glas Italia, Kartell, Living Divani, Magis, Moroso. 

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Each season will present a different theme - living room in spring, picnic in summer, office in autumn, playroom in winter. While people can throw snowballs in the winter garden or work on their suntan in the summer garden, the pavilion also puts forward a poetic integration between interior architecture and nature. In addition to creating a fun and whimsical space in the heart of the city, “Living Nature” also aims to explore two crucial themes: the relationship between nature and the city, and the effects of climate change on all of us.

Image © Salone del Mobile

The relationship between nature and the city is a recurring theme in Western history, from ancient Greece to Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Cities to Frank Lloyd Wright’s urban utopias.

"In the 20th century, cities expanded outwards to conquer nature and the countryside. We believe that today's challenge is the opposite: How can we bring nature back to the city and into the home?," said Carlo Ratti, founding partner at CRA and director of the MIT Senseable City Lab.

"In recent years, Milan has been at the forefront of such research, with landmark projects like Stefano Boeri’s Bosco Verticale. 'Living Nature' expands on this concept, raising new questions related to sustainability in the domestic and collective spheres," he added.

Image © Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti

A key issue raised by “Living Nature” is climate change. The plants in the pavilion, selected by French botanist Patrick Blanc, are housed under a 5-meter-high selective crystal membrane that dynamically filters the sun based on input from light-reactive sensors. 

Image © Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti

Above the pavilion, photovoltaic panels generate clean energy, providing the required energy to cool the winter area, or to heat the summer space. Batteries provide additional storage to even out high and low peaks of energy production.

Image © Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti

The plants in the pavilion, selected by French botanist Patrick Blanc, are housed under a 5-meter-high selective crystal membrane that dynamically filters the sun based on input from light-reactive sensors. Above the pavilion, photovoltaic panels generate clean energy, providing the required energy to cool the winter area, or to heat the summer space. Batteries provide additional storage to even out high and low peaks of energy production.

Image © Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti

Living Nature houses four different ecosystems, with 23 species of tall trees that enjoy perfect lighting and temperature conditions in an optimal habitat. The winter area includes two types of acer and pine trees, along with a Himalayan birch, Chinese scholar tree, and Oriental spruce. The spring area features a Japanese flowering crabapple and a Tibetan cherry 'Branklyn' - both in full bloom - along with a Magnolia x loebneri, flowering myrobalan, a katsura tree and two varieties of amelanchier tree. 

Image © Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti

The summer area contains the welcome shade of a common oak and a common alder tree, and a small-Leaved lime, common hornbeam and soft tree fern. Finally, in the autumn section, a crab apple 'Rudolph', Japanese maple and Persian ironwood make for a riot of warm colours. 

In addition to the tall trees, each season’s space is also characterised by garden compositions featuring plants and flowers that are typical of that time of the year. There is also a huge variety of shrubs, grasses and bulbous plants for visitors to look at as they wander around the pavilion.

Image © Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti

"As designers, I think today we find ourselves at an utopia-or-oblivion crossroads", added Ratti: "Oblivion, if we are not able to rise to the challenge of the changes underway. Utopia, if we succeed in becoming the creators of transformation in the “artificial world”, starting with our cities and our homes. Living Nature aims to foster a new debate on sustainability - what if the next frontier of design is to reimagine urban climate?".

Image © Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappellett

"Living Nature" continues CRA’s ongoing research into the relationship between nature and the city. Previous CRA projects that touch on this theme include Trussardi Dehors in Milan’s Piazza della Scala, designed with Patrick Blanc, which included Italy’s first vertical garden;  the master plan to develop the former Milan Expo World site into a park for science, knowledge and innovation (MIND-Milano Innovation District), featuring a one-mile long linear park as the neighborhood’s main mobility axis; and Singapore’s CapitaSpring, a 280-meter high tower, co-designed with Bjarke Angels group, that features a green oasis core. 

Image © Salone del Mobile

CRA also curated the “Green & the Grey” – an exhibition exploring the technology-driven reconciliation between city and nature that was a part of Toronto’s EDIT Expo celebrating 150 years of Canadian independence.

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