TRANSITIONAL ECOLOGIES

REGENERATION OF THE LACUSTRINE IDENTITY OF TEXCOCO

CLOUD

STUDIO I - GRADUATE SCHOOL | IIT | MEXICO CITY | 2019

Transitional Ecologies establishes a successional botanical landscape for the site of the canceled project of Mexico City’s new airport. The place was the last remnant of Lake Texcoco, one of Mexico City’s historic lakes and a rare global high-altitude saline-lacustrine habitat. The proposed airport, designed by the architect, Norman Foster, was partially constructed, this operation required the drainage of the last water bodies existent on site. It required the import of 30 million cubic feet of volcanic rock. It was an ecological disaster that was halted by the national referendum following the election of the new government of Mexico in 2018. The studio proposition was to design a botanic garden. As a consequence of the scale of the site, it will be the most extensive botanical garden in the world. Due to its environmental degradation, the design requires a re-thinking of the 21st century botanic garden.

SUBLIME PAST | LAKE TEXCOCO

During the 17th century, the Texcoco Lake was the most important water body in the Mexico Valley watershed.

REMNANTS PRESENT | LAKE TEXCOCO

However, human operations drained the lake until its bed was exposed and consequently degraded to a point of desertification.

RESILIENCE FUTURE | LAKE TEXCOCO

The project aims to rescue and use the remaining ecological features, with the intention of expanding them and to recover the landscape, understanding that it will never go back to its original identity.

TEXCOCO TRANSECTS COMPOSITION

LAKE TEXCOCO SYSTEMATIC OPERATIONS

Gran CanaldeDesagüe

R o delosRemedios so ideme Rs o Canal La Compañia

Gr an Ca a l de Desagü e ocaocacxaoC R ognapa Xo og p alaX oíR a ltolap oíR AGRICULTURAL nau J So WATER BODIES MUNICIPAL LANDFILL COMPACTED SOIL SOFT - GROUNDCOVER BARREN SOILS COMPACTED TEZONTLE o idr an B n S e d o R o n p hC R p etaoC aocacxaoCoíR o az aM e

TEXCOCO CURRENT CONDITIONS

LAKE

NATIVE SPECIES

PHASES OF CONSOLIDATION

Mexico City is the third-largest city in Latin America. The city developed over time in a valley formed by a system of 5 lakes (Chalco, Xochimilco, Texcoco, Zumpango, Xaltocan) surrounded by the Guadalupe mountain range to the north, the Chapultepec mountain to the north-west, and the volcanic mountain range of Santa Catarina to the southeast. The studio explores this geological diversity and its role in the evolution of the botanical gardens in the city as a hybrid architectural and landscape ty pology. The work will focus on the cul tural, biological, and pedagogical leg acy of Mexico City’s botanical gardens and their long-lasting urban nature. Working together, students from differ ent backgrounds will have the opportu nity to form personal and collective understandings of what cross-disciplinary explorations mean in their research, design proposals, and create hypothetical implementation strategies.

With such a large site to develop into a functioning and healthy space, the approach to the site is based in systematic operation of the habitats composing it. It enhances the existent areas to create most impact with the least amount of effort. These prioritized areas simultaneously would provide staging of plants and other resources for future areas, while also creating recognizable and accessible parts.

The project is focused on the understanding of how the diverse, multi-layered, complex conditions of the tropics works as a network that goes beyond political, geographical, and chronological boundaries. This nutures a responsibility toward native landscapes and ecologies, that reflect a worldly awareness of vegetation, migrational patterns, and growth as a tool for self-sustaining resilience. Adding to this, the social component of ephemerality that forms long-lasting cultural conditions and the consequential identities of place and user.