Playing around on the internet, looking for inspiration I found a great lecture by Tatiana Bilboa, who runs an acclaimed mexican architectural practice, set up in 2004 and employs a total 32 architects. She also opened a research studio called MXDF along with architects Derek Dellekamp, Arturo Ortiz and Michel Rojkind an interdisciplinary think tank to work collaboratively with her practice.
In the lecture she outlines several of their works, focussing on two projects; Sinaloa and Pilgrimage Route in Jalisco and the Botanical Garden in Culiacan and also introduces her ideas relating to 'responsive urbanism'.
She compares London and Mexico City, saying that they geographically similar in size and height. Then goes on to describe the way in Mexico City grew. From above the city looks as though is built on in grid form and is well organized not dissimilar to New York.
But in fact the majority of the city is a slum, the land which the slums were built on was mostly agricultural land and the lines that can be seen in the picture above are the remnants of plot lines facilitating crop growing. This land was illegally purchased by the public from farmers and used to build on, therefore their are no government regulations and most of the homes have been build by the homeowners. This means that no planning has taken place and in places the city lacks typical amenities, for example sewerage systems, electricity supplies and so-on.
This factor she recognises as one of her primary concerns when considering the problems of Mexico City, taking also into account other issues relating to crime and drugs, all of which add to the complexity involved in master planning. The government are providing new homes that she deems insufficient for the peoples needs.
One of her aims is to change the way space is used in the city by providing safer and more welcoming locations, removing the danger element and in turn improving the quality of life for the public, she describes this approach as 'Acupuncture Architecture,' an example of this type of intervention, would be a community centre and park created in Ciudad Juarez, one of Mexico's most dangerous cities.
Moving from these projects onto the Pilgrimage Route in Jalisco - 'La Ruta del Peregrino' . This route is travelled by over two million people during the holy week in mid april and covers a distance of 117 km. The route begins in a town called Ameca and travels over the mountain range of Jalisco and onto the final destination, the village of Talpa de Allende to see the Rosario Virgin. This pilgrimage is traditional and very renowned for the catholics of Mexico some of whom travel it every year, even so their are no facilities for the pilgrims, shelters, toilets, eating places, only the handmade signs and insubstantial temporary shelters give reference to the route.
An international team of Architects including Titian Bilboa were asked to design a series of lookout points and services along the route all of which were to be in keeping with the religious nature of the pilgrimage. Below is the first intervention, symbolic of a cross, the extents of the cross are marked with four walls, placed so that the shadows created by the midday sun provide a cool place to rest and view the mountains from.
Look Out Point by Elemental Architects in Chile. The architects aim was create a tension between the natural beauty of the mountains and the manmade structure of the lookout, playing on the idea of balance.
Concept - Aiweiwei
All of the aspects contained within the project for Tiatania Bilboa can be brought back to four main points, which she uses as a guide for her work and 'La Ruta del Peregrino' now contains an infrastructure benefitting the pilgrims and celebrating their journey.
Botanical Garden in Culiacan
The second project she talks about is the Botanical Garden in Culiacan. These gardens are again of historical importance in Mexico, they are freely used by the Mexicans as a cultural and recreational facility not viewed upon as being only for the elite.
Her client for the Botanical gardens was an art collector, who suggested donating 35 art peices to be displayed in the gardens. A later decision was made to commission 35 new art works that would be site specific and therefore work much more successfully in their surroundings.
The Master Plan could then start to take shape, and still working with the current scheme of the gardens a new design was made that would be able to harmoniously complement the needs of the people and layout required for the artworks. The idea for Tiatania Bilboa was to work as spontaneously possible and not to close the gardens whist the work took place.
Using the imprint of veins on a leaf they came to a decision about how the layout of the gardens should look, this image was then overlaid onto the existing map of the gardens and altered according, using the phrase 'Architecture Tectonics' to describe the undualting landscape and also the style of the buildings within the park.
Images below are from the artist work as mentioned earlier all of the works are site specific and somehow are referent to Mexico, displaying the works of Julian Opie, Ricard Long, Dan Graham, James Turrell and others.
The garden took over 5 years to construct and is now a place of national importance for Mexico. The idea of bringing art and education into a public arena that becomes accessible for the whole population whilst also providing entertainment within a safe environment is complicatied and varied problem which has been successfully executed in this instance. As well as this the homogeny that was achieved through calibration with different disciplines enabled for a more complete and polished outcome.
