Marko Brajovic explains multispecies cities

Consulted for the annual survey on macro trends that CASACOR carries out every year and invited to EIXOS CASACOR , an event that revealed the theme “ Sowing Dreams ” for 2025, architect Marko Brajovic is a specialist in biomimicry and digital arts. Below, in an exclusive interview, he talks about his research on the Forest City and analyzes the importance of the theme in the context of climate change. CASACOR: You presented an image of the Pinheiros River without pollution, surrounded by vegetation and with people swimming. Is it something to remain in the imagination or a viable project? Marko Brajovic: Things don’t happen if they can’t be imagined. I had already published a similar illustration at the beginning of the pandemic, accompanied by a text called “How will we live together with all other species?”. It compiles my sociocultural-ecological vision of that moment and it remains valid. I had made a drawing at the time and now, with generative AI, I have been able to express these ideas in more elaborate images. They evoke utopian visions of the 1950s and 1960s, which interest me as potential realization of ideas. The human mind has become very shrunken, we suffer from the inability to visualize possible futures. I want to encourage the recovery of this capacity. The only way for this vision of the city to happen is through a collective drawing. CC: How can we achieve this collective work for the future? MB: Today, commercial relations determine what is possible or impossible, and this type of regulation depresses our vision of the future. Biophilia is born within us, it is a movement of seeking connection, of feeling oneself in nature, with the city as an extension of the social and personal body. Envisioning this future takes us out of normative depression. Inspiring and making people fall in love with a vision is the beginning of the path. If we dream together, the dream becomes an intersubjective, shared reality. And its realization will depend only on effort and resources.

CC: What is the ecological era? MB: It is when human beings transition to a non-linear, shared and interrelated perception of coexistence with other species. Ecologically sensitive people understand deeply that we are part of a collective on a living planet. They are aware of interconnections: any action has a non-linear relationship with everything else. At some point this will happen on a large scale. My actions as an architect and designer are systemic and do not require the term sustainability, which has been completely absorbed by the linearity of the logic of consumption. You calculate your impact and buy carbon credits. In ecology, you cannot quantify relationships. CC: How to create multispecies cities? MB: We don’t consider ourselves nature, but it’s very clear that we are not more valuable, intelligent or capable than any other being. We do have the capacity for anticipation, organization and collective planning that is highly articulated. We have a great opportunity to value cooperation, which is the most important characteristic of nature. An ecological vision is cooperative, supportive between human and non-human beings. How can we collaborate to have resilient cities? You can collaborate with a tree. Creating conditions for it to thrive is very simple. And then we will have shade, better air, birds. We are looking for very sophisticated geoengineering technologies to clean the air when the best we have is nature. In my studio, we want to think of architectures that bring nature back and help us recognize ourselves as nature. We are studying which environments, materials and textures favor this. CC: For the future of cities, how important are parks and squares, that is, green areas that also function as collective and meeting spaces? MB: Today I see them as obsolete. The confined park has reached the limit of its possibilities. The multispecies city is a large park; it transcends the dialectic of what is built architecture and what is a tree. Architecture could use the same principles of capturing solar energy, pumping water through capillarity, self-cleaning surfaces, and bird shelters, imitating trees. In a biomimetic process, architecture could eliminate the very marked boundary between what is a park and what is a city. That is my utopia. The park is where the city of the future will be born. CC: What would this city be like? MB: The greenery spreads throughout the park, but not only that: the park’s operation interconnects with other urban structures. This is already happening. Parks that were purely contemplative now have shops, brands, activations, events. This is very good. It puts an end to the idea that it is a romantic, passive place of untouched nature. We are at a good point to understand how parks will extend throughout the urban space. CC: How can we make cities more resilient to climate events? MB: With great humility, we must recognize ourselves as part of a living planet. We are experiencing a climate transition within a depressing vision of society, stuck in a present that does not look to our ancestors or to the future. Seven generations forward and backward, as the indigenous people teach us. The theory of resilience considers four factors: that the city has network systems, that is, structures organized on different scales – this is something we learned by observing the functioning of forests. Secondly, a resilient city works with feedback loops: it sees its cyclical processes, learns and improves. It is also essential that it be multispecies, designed for beings other than just humans. Then comes the perception of the inhabitants. We need to love the city as we love our own body because it is the collective body. Then we move from a mechanical vision to an organic vision of the city.