Project:        Lost Forest. 2023
Competition:    TAC Festival de Arquitectura Urbana.
Location:       Donostia, Pais Vasco. ES.

Authors:        Santiago del Águila & Julia Ruiz-Cabello Subiela



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In the actual context of climate emergency in which we live nowdays, Lost Forest pavilion brings closer the reality of forest fires and raises awareness about the importance of coexistence, care and sustainable management of our forest. The project made this statement in a very direct and frontal way, transferring a large volume of burned logged trees, coming from a nearby fire, to an urban context in the city of San Sebastián (Basque Country).


The construction process was equally relevant. For a week, people from San Sebastián witnessed a brutal performance in which 20 long forestry trucks of 13m long arrived transporting a large volume of trees that was unloaded with a forestry clamp and raised on a steel containment structure whose objective was only to frame this process. Ash, cortex and branches came off the wood, contaminating and dirtying the site so often transited daily. People could smell and touch the burned wood. The small forest fragment was also a refuge for other “walkers” of different species such as birds, butterflies and other insects. 

The volume was built with groups of stacked logs 4m long. The species used was “pino laricio” (black pine), from one of the eight fires that, in June from 2022, devastated almost 15,000 hectares in Puente la Reina, Navarra. Maderas Larreta, a local company in charge of exploiting this area, collaborated in the project by lending the almost 1,000 stereos (about 500 tons) of logged wood that shaped the sculpture. The logs, due to their loan condition, could not be manipulated and had to be returned exactly the same. All wood came directly from the forest without going through any prior processing. Once the pavilion was dismantled, the trees continued its path (burned wood still has many industrial uses) and the forest continued its regeneration.

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