While walking the streets of San José, we saw a café building covered in greenery and surrounded by trees. To us, this café building highlights how Costa Rican culture aims to protect and integrate nature through their designs. This building stood out because it is a stark contrast to the United States, where nature is removed to make way for infrastructure. Because Costa Ricans highly value nature, many buildings are designed with nature in mind. For example, the majority of buildings are made with materials that reduce carbon footprint, use sustainable energy, and integrate nature in their designs. During our coffee tour at Café Britt, the guide explained to us the importance of growing other plants in coffee plantations. Growing a variety of plants offers a healthy ecosystem for the coffee plants to thrive in. The other plants act as a natural repellent of bugs, keeping them away from the coffee fruits. In addition, they can be used to provide shade so the coffee plants do not burn under the hot sun. Nature works collaboratively to provide the best environment. Nature offers humans shade, cleaner air, and reduced stress, among other benefits. In return, humans care for and maintain the health of the plants. Observing these design choices throughout the trip allowed for a reflection on how a society’s values are able to shape architecture. In Costa Rica, the infrastructure is created to adapt to the ecosystem already there, and in the United States, the ecosystem is destroyed in order to make more infrastructure. It especially reflects the difference in how much a society values the environment and the need for more efforts to protect the environment.
