Puertos is a city of two thousand five hundred hectares located within the Escobar party in the Province of Buenos Aires. As part of an extensive work process, Bulla has developed there an active, environmental, and cultural suburban landscape project, a pragmatic laboratory on how to rethink the atmospheric life in harmony with people and ecology. Within this new urbanity, a new cultural milestone emerges: the new Malba Puertos, a suburban public museum that has six exhibition rooms: three indoors and three outdoor galleries designed by Bulla, aimed at creating a pathway within a grove of planted alders.

The first phase of the project was related to the exploration of the site and the discovery of entire woods of Tessaria integrifolia, a species popularly known as river alder. This discovery initiated a process of trial and research alongside a team of scientists and conservation and soil specialists. Consequently, samples were taken from various locations, soil studies were conducted, and subsequently, efforts began to reproduce and rescue them using various methods, techniques, and conditions. The species was measured and observed biweekly under different stimuli. Two campaign nurseries were set up for two thousand five hundred river alders, where it was verified that the species has the particularity of growing very quickly, allowing for a dense mass in a short period of time.

The research process concluded with the design of the Malba Forest: a project defined as a vegetative frieze of one hundred fifty meters that weaves through the buildings, dialogues with them, and is part of an urban operation. The artificial alder grove contains three generic and flexible rooms of two hundred, one hundred, and fifty square meters respectively, linked by a system of floating metal walkways, allowing visitors to walk while looking down at the ground. Each of the three rooms is a clearing within a dense forest of two thousand square meters that evokes the sensation of a woodland that has always been there, and now becomes a cultural agenda for Puertos, with an educational and experiential focus.

The Forest is defined as both a hydraulic and ecological infrastructure. A large vessel of seven thousand five hundred cubic meters of a soil specifically designed to emulate conditions of flooding, water flow, and salinity, in which this species lives and develops. An infrastructure that fills and empties with water simulating the pulsations of origin, through irrigation and drainage pumps. This new highly technical soil protects the alder from the nearby salty water table. This grove of two thousand two hundred specimens of local genetics and no commercial value functions as the first artificial alder grove: a displaced species that returns to its place of origin, regenerating part of the original matrix of the site. A systemic and dense planting was designed, combining specimens of various age ranges to accompany the original social composition of these botanical populations.

The first artificial alder planted, a sui generis work that revalues a relictual ecosystem of the region, a landscape that was abundant in the past and is now in retreat. The result is a dynamic wooded park, full of sounds, colors, and a flora and fauna that make it vibrant and attractive. The three rooms float above this mantle of humidity and freshness. Each room supports up to three tons to accommodate various cultural activities. The design of a modular system of monolithic flooring with aluminum joints allows for illumination from below the clearing in the forest.

The walkways float supported by a longitudinal beam. This museum-forest combines an urban perspective of public space with an ecosystemic and environmental view of a possible future. A future where science and creativity collaborate towards a common goal, where research is a key part of our innovation processes, and where the landscape reclaims its leading role in cities, which is to reinvent the spatial life that exists between the ground and the sky.

Malba Forest

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