Project implementation: Brazil
Project development: Brazil
From Drought to Life – A Portrait of Regeneration
By: Alexandre Furcolin Landscaping
In a world where major solutions seem distant, transformation can emerge on accessible scales and deeply rooted in everyday life. It is in this context that Alexandre Furcolin's Sítio emerges, an experimental territory that, over four decades, has established itself as a living laboratory of biodiversity, culture, and reconnection. Located in Joaquim Egídio, a former coffee-growing region in the interior of São Paulo state, the site was acquired at a time when the region was facing the decline of monoculture. The land, marked by ecological depletion, bore the scars of degraded pastures and extensive eucalyptus stands, compromising the water cycle and soil fertility.
The starting point was a close look at the territory's hidden potential. Still in the 1990s, a gradual restoration process began: soil reorganization, water retention, and the introduction of native and fruit-bearing species, first in small areas, then in the nursery that would become the heart of the project. This initially modest space evolved into a living botanical collection, nourished by continuous research and experimentation. There, a repertoire was consolidated that expanded the practice of landscaping, shifting it from its merely aesthetic function to the role of a living organism, a concrete expression of care and reconnection.
In the following decade, the site housed the landscaping firm's headquarters, built with reforested wood, cross-ventilation, and recycled materials. More than a building, the project embodied a gesture: integrating workspace, experimental field, and regenerated territory into a single living organism. The team's constant presence intensified the connection between practice and place, ensuring that each project was imbued with the direct experience of inhabiting a transforming ecosystem.
Today, the site stands as a leading center for ecological landscaping, restoring water cycles, strengthening biodiversity, capturing carbon, creating green infrastructure, and producing technical and sensitive knowledge about the relationship between society and nature. A territory home to over a thousand plant species, a thriving fauna, and practices that combine agroecology, contemplation, and technological innovation. The dialogue between the hoe, the drawing board, and the computer structures the space's philosophy: technology does not replace nature, but helps ensure its permanence.
The video presented at the Biennial condenses this trajectory into contrasting images: a divided land that reveals two possible futures. On one side, the arid silence of a degraded territory; on the other, the vitality regenerated by more than 30 years of work by Alexandre Furcolin and his team. The process is revealed as planning and management: soil reorganization, water retention, vegetation implantation, and the development of an ecosystem capable of sustaining diversity and responding to climate extremes. More than a record, the film proposes a critical reflection: which landscape do we choose to cultivate and inhabit?