Agricultura Social en lineas de trasmisión eléctrica // Social Agriculture in electric transmission lines, 2018

Project Origin: CDMX, Mexico

Exhibition: Showcased at Abierto Mexicano de Diseño (AMD) Mexico Design Festival

La red de líneas de transmisión eléctrica en la Ciudad de México tiene como huella espacios abiertos subutilizados que tienen el potencial de ser reprogramados para el beneficio de la localidad.

La integración de huertos urbanos a la red de líneas de transmisión eléctrica forma una nueva tipología de parque que concibe un espacio productivo y de esparcimiento para la comunidad, genera conciencia alimentaria y promueve vínculos sociales multisectoriales.

La propuesta incluye vínculos con instituciones educativas como escuelas y universidades, instituciones de asistencia social, como asilos y guarderías, e instituciones culturales circundantes para activar de manera local estas nuevas áreas verdes.

En 2016 se creó la ley de huertos urbanos, sin embargo la yuxtaposición de huertos urbanos con líneas de infraestructura aborda temas de planeación urbana y elementos jurídicos poco flexibles en la ley. A nivel urbano, el proyecto busca cuestionar los instrumentos de planeación para habilitar intervenciones en corredores eléctricos, así como medidas para el fomento de iniciativas de reapropiación del espacio público temporales y permanentes en corredores de infraestructura.

The network of power transmission lines in Mexico City has underutilized open spaces that have the potential to be reprogrammed for the locality’s interest.

The integration of community gardens into the network of electric transmission lines forms a new park typology. This typology conceives a productive and recreational open space for the community, generates food awareness and promotes multi-sectorial integration.

Digital Fabrication as a driver of urban transformation, 2015

Author name: Nayeli Galindo

Collaborators: Christina Voutsa, Ivo Barros

Project origin: London, UK

Exhibition: Showcased at the Triennale di Milano XXI

The project aims to rethink typologically the challenges arising from the combination of industrial with living environments. It shows a set of urban interventions, which encourage architecture as urbanism, to drive change and test the potential of Digital Fabrication industry as urban transformer.

London productive territory: Old Kent Road, 2014

Project origin: London, UK

Increasing productivity, in purely economic terms, has become a central concern of urban developments in cities undergoing rapid transformation, often leading to increase in land values and expulsion of local population. To produce resilient communities it is important to articulate spatial, economic, social and cultural dimensions in a multi-scalar strategy, and to facilitate synergies between various actors.

The study area around Old Kent Road is used to test an alternative logic of transformation, owing to its particular conditions which differ from main London development trends. The study of existing productive networks supports the hypothesis that large industrial sites sustain smaller businesses, integrating local population in the productive cycle. Productivity can be enhanced by the combined action of institutions acting as learning centres for a labour force, with the rethinking of housing as a layered strategy towards urban development. Three areas of intervention are identified to develop spatial responses to these conditions, establishing new interfaces between different pieces of urban fabric. These tests can be scaled-up to reintegrate industrial land at a London scale, enabling a long-term sustainability of this fundamental network.

Urban Mobility and Social Housing, 2014

Project origin: Recife, Brazil

This intensive design workshop in Recife, in collaboration with the Federal University of Pernambuco, explored a study area in relation to the potential of social housing and urban mobility in urban development. Current mass housing projects and investments in public transport in Recife offer opportunities to rethink the role of mobility and housing, strengthening spatial relations between dwelling, urban infrastructure, production and services. The aim of linking different federal and municipal tools for public investment, whilst spatially rethinking infrastructural investment, forms the basis for the four spatial explorations in the territory on both sides of the Avenida Norte, a main transport route.

Networking Localised Strategies

The aim is to enhance existing social and economic networks through a spatially and functionally interlinked series of localized interventions. New systems of permeable urban fabric allow for a more differentiated sequence of private and public urban conditions. The formation of a high quality public realm will help to reduce social and physical borders, which currently limit potential. Adding spaces for institutional functions will act as a catalyst for commercial and residential development, and help to improve education and training facilities in the area. New institution and improved public realm strengthen the networks on both sides of the Avenida Norte. New housing for all three levels of the Minha Casa Minha Vida programme is integrated with existing built fabric.

Urban Mobility is interpreted as a multi-scalar system of movement, which incorporates both regional transportation networks as well as local pedestrian walkability. The Avenida already acts as a vital regional connector, and its role will be further emphasised through the planned introduction of a rail-based public transportation system. The aim is to focus on a localized understanding of mobility, addressing areas which are independent of, or run parallel to, the Avenida Norte. Networks and centralities are formed, which spread across the territory and address different topographical and functional conditions, linking with existing centralities through differentiated sequences of spaces.