The Third | Column “DESIGNING WITH NATURE”

MR. DIRECTOR:
It is worth asking ourselves the following question: why do we continue to invite nature at the end, when the table is already set?

In too many decisions about cities, projects, and infrastructure, ecosystems are considered too late: when the design is already finalized, when the impact has already occurred, or when public debate has already turned into conflict. This approach makes us lose time, legitimacy, and the ability to anticipate future problems.

Nature also plans, regulates water, sustains biodiversity, mitigates climate events, and improves people’s daily lives. When it is considered from the outset, it ceases to be an incidental issue or a matter of permits and becomes a prerequisite for better design.

The challenge, then, is to change the starting point. The best development decisions will be those that understand that a city, a park, a public works project, or an infrastructure project functions best when it incorporates, from the outset, the natural systems that support it.

Diego Urrejola, Executive Director of the Cosmos Foundation