Boundaries :: Mexico City
boundaries : mexico city Daniel Ranostaj Thesis Proposal
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BOUNDARIES :: MEXICO CITY
An Abstract of a Senior Honors Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture University of Houston
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Bachelor of Architecture
By Daniel Ranostaj May, 2014
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Abstract
Boundaries, formed as a construct of federal mismanagement, cultural identity, and environmental challenges, reinforce the instability and uncertainty Mexico City faces, seen through the historical layers of the Aztec settlement, Spanish colonization, and modern day urban city. Tlatelolco, containing the largest urban housing settlement in Mexico City, was designed as one object by all three cultures, partially, but not completely razing traces of the past built form. The partial destruction creates dissonance between the historical layers of the city. This investigation examines the psychological, physical and historical boundaries of Mexico City to suggest that these interconnected elements do not have to simultaneously compete, further straining relationships of existing boundaries but are able to be used as precedent to dissolve negative boundaries that exist in the between Tlatelolco and its surroundings.
This investigation examines and challenges the psychological, physical and historical idea of the boundary within Tlatelolco by analyzing historical housing typologies in order to challenge the destructive model of development while utilizing cultural and historical determinants in the architecture.
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Contents
Prospectus ......................................... p.13 Analysis ......................................... p.27 Design Concept and ......................................... p.51 Strategy Drawings and Models ......................................... p.65 Precedents ......................................... p.89 Bibliography ....................................... p.100 References ....................................... p.101
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Remains of Lake Texcoco along the constructed edge of Chalco, Mexico City.
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Prospectus “The history of Mexico City is the story of 1 its successive destructions.� - Gonzalo Celorio
Privatized informal growth coupled by few coherent infrastructural strategies form distinct but unplanned neighborhoods in Mexico City. At various scales, boundaries of space are clearly demarcated, seen in the division of public and private space in family dwellings, as well as in urban components and districts of commercial and residential development. These individual settlements, although cohesive the immediate context, create distinct boundaries between larger areas of space that define individual neighborhoods. Inconsistency in government regulation and planning further strain ties between society, infrastructure and urban space as individuals employ localized strategies to maintain the city.2 This societal movement establishes the piecemeal effect of neighborhood segregation in the city, which is worsened by federal apathy in regulating the establishment and maintenance of infrastructure and services.
Just as the federal authorities in the district have neglected to invest in planning and infrastructure, sinking ground in the Valley of Mexico comes at a cost of drilling for groundwater in a strained supply. The authorities, in the colonial and modern day Mexico, have utilized controversial policies for the supply, effectively draining the surface water from Lake Texcoco, and later diminishing groundwater supply.3 These issues, in turn, have affected much of the ecology in the valley, creating a dry sink bowl, creating flash flooding during rains and soil instability.
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Morella
Pachuca Toluca Puebla Xalapa
Queretaro
National migration patterns of Mexico City.
As these areas gentrify and develop autonomously, public and private spaces in the city are increasingly compartmentalized and defined. These open-ended individual attempts to cope with an architectural problem exacerbate urban space planning and infrastructure solutions throughout areas in the city, such as Tlatelolco, which deal with limited resources. Tlatelolco, containing the largest urban housing settlement in Mexico City, was built through inconsistent planning by incompletely razing traces of the Aztec and Spanish colonization inside the modernist development. These fragmented historical layers are a direct result of the inconsistent tabula rasa model of the city’s destructive and development growth cycle and demonstrate the cultural and historical dissonance that exists between these metaphysical elements of 4 the city’s history.
This investigation examines the psychological, physical and historical idea of the boundary within Mexico City to realign the historical layers of the city that exist within the boundary between Tlatelolco and its surroundings. The proposal examines historical housing typologies from the Aztec, Spanish, and modern day periods to provide a model of development that utilizes and provides awareness to the cultural and historical boundaries in architecture while challenging the notion of the destructive development in the city.
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Images below the three different time periods of Mexico City, the Aztec, Colonial, and modern day Mexico demonstrating the treatment of the landscape and the drainage of Lake Texcoco.
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“Those who have long been marginalized in traditional history are not the only ones haunted by the need to recover their buried pasts.” 5 - Pierre Nora
Throughout Mexico City’s modern history, politics and environment have been in conflict, at the expense of society and culture. As the Aztecs overtook the landscape of the valley, the Spanish soon conquered the area, razing a lot of the historical Aztec development to make way for the colonial city. This irregular tabula rasa model in the city’s development is consistent throughout its history, demonstrating that “culture were not a business of accumulation so much 6 as of displacement”. These historical layers, however, are never completely erased, creating an impure slate for the new city layer. This historical inconsistency is seen in the city’s developments, where these layers create boundaries between urban space. The city is effectively eating itself from the inside out, utilizing a cycle of development and waste through its mismanagement and allocation of political and environmental resources.
The Mexican government reinforces this segmentation through divergent policy decisions. Within the inner circle of closed-door government, “restrictions placed upon urban growth of proposed land uses were the result of particularistic decision making by politicians or officials; they were not based upon legislated norms or regulations”.7 These restrictions, or lack there of, are visible in areas outside the Federal District such as Neza, as development outside the districts boundaries allowed for illegal settlement and development, resulting in large swaths of areas where infrastructure and city services are not provided. These ideals demonstrate poor decisions in a series of unorganized urban strategies, which strengthen the disjointed nature of the individual boundaries between city neighborhoods.
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Casa Barragan, Courtyard typology utilizing an introverted garden.
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This conflict is also observed in the boundaries present in Mexican culture through the departmentalization of the city, as society is constantly attempting to create equilibrium and stability through government inconsistency and environmental waste. Octavio Paz, in Obras Completas, describes the “reaction is justified in light of Mexican history and the society Mexico has created. The toughness and hostility of the environment and the hidden and indefinable threat that always floats in the air make Mexicans shut themselves 8 off from the exterior”. He argues the cultural attitude of the Mexican people has developed from environmental difficulties in conjunction with the destructive political and physical history.
These series of issues has created a guarded nature in society that looks for peace, solitude, and communion, reflected in the architectural materiality and division of public and private space. Fernando Nunez describes this enclosing nature of Mexican culture as a society that “builds up a wall, invisible but insurmountable of quietness and distance…privacy is found on one side of the wall and socialization on the other side.” He describes the construct of urban barriers in cities to act as a dividing device to demonstrate the “dialectic 9 of the closed and open”. These walls that create distinct boundaries between individual spaces present a unique urban condition where streets form voids between public infrastructure and individual development.
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Shown below are images of the Plaza de Tres Culturas, containing the Aztec ruins, Santiago de Tlatelolco, and the modernist housing development, demonstrating the broken palimpsest in the history of Mexico City.
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Tlatelolco, northwest of central Mexico City, compromises the largest and most dense single urban housing project. Developed as a new modernist city by Mario Pani during a time of economic expansion in the 1960’s, Tlatelolco was meant to be a city within a city, complete with hospitals, educational facilities, and abundant housing for the growing population. This area was approved by the government during a time of economic prosperity in Mexico, providing a showcase to the 1968 Olympics. The modern housing project sits atop traces of the city’s history, containing Aztec ruins and a 16th century catholic church. Three distinct historical layers define the Plaza de Tres Culturas, a fragmented palimpsest.
This neighborhood, north of the historical city center, exemplifies the dissonance between the historical layers of the city by informing how the tabula rasa development model initiates definitive boundaries in the city’s urban space and architecture. These spaces, while containing new development, fail in completely eliminating the historical elements of the past, displaying a fragmented historical palimpsest. Similarly to Ciudad Neza, this particular area today faces challenges from the governmental authority to provide maintenance to the existing neighborhood, threatening the quality of infrastructure 10 and safety in the area. Several of the structures have been demolished due to natural disasters coupled with poor structural integrity, as poor soil quality and earthquakes strain the structures.
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Images below depict the psychological boundaries of Tlatelolco. The Massacre of 1968 in the Plaza de Tres Culturas and the Mexico City Earthquake of 1985.
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“Indeed, it is this very push and pull that produces lieux de memoire—moments of history torn away from the movement of history, then returned; no longer quite life, not yet death, like shells on the shore when 11 the sea of living memory has receded.” - Pierre Nora
Psychological boundaries in Tlatelolco are directly connected to historical elements and events from the neighborhood’s short existence. These boundaries, described by Ruben Gallo as a lieux de mémoire, or place of memory, are visible when elements from a place “emerge spontaneously from people’s identification of 12 a site with an event”. Pierre Nora describes these memories as “fundamentally remains, the ultimate embodiments of a memorial consciousness that has barely survived in a historical age that call out for memory because it 13 has abandoned it”. These memories, however bleak, spawn from the 1968 student massacre in the Plaza de Tres Culturas and the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, when several residential towers in the development collapsed. These intangible memories connect physical place in Tlatelolco, creating an individual stigma connected to the complex and plaza by individual accounts of history.
These memories, coupled by the physical destruction of past cultures visible in the architectural ruins, establish psychological boundaries that are interconnected to the layers of the site’s incomplete palimpsest.
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Tlatelolco upon completion, 1967.
tlatelolco
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“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” 14 - George Santayana
These conditions, formed as an interdependent construct of federal mismanagement, cultural identity, and environmental challenges, reinforce the instability and uncertainty the city faces, creating a cause and effect relationship between history and boundary. This investigation analyzes historical housing typologies in Mexico City to challenge the “tabula rasa” model of development in the city by maintaining and linking the cultural and historical boundaries of colloquial Mexican architecture in order to dissolve the dissonant boundary between the palimpsest.
These urban development strategies aim to demonstrate that these interconnected boundary elements do not have simultaneously compete to further strain relationships of existing boundaries. They are, however, able to be used as precedent to dissolve stigmas that exist in the neighborhood by investigating how culture, history, and environmental issues are able to inform architecture while utilizing context to mitigate the current cyclical effects of destruction and development. The investigation examines the psychological, physical, and historical boundary condition in the city and how to address these conditions that appear This thesis proposes to in Tlatelolco at the human implement a housing model and urban scale, which arise in Tlatelolco that displays from historical precedents contextual awareness between of federal mismanagement, the political and historical environmental repercussions, dissonance while establishing and cultural instability. a developmental model that acknowledges and readdresses the past hierarchical role of planning and development.
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Historical city growth and the drainage of Lake Texcoco.
1806 1886 1929 1950 1970
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Analysis
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Below :: Three Historical Time Periods of Mexico City that represent the Aztec, Spanish, and modern day periods and their respective urbanization of the water network.
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Canal Network and water pumping infrastructure in the Distrito Federalwhich include present day boundaries of Lake Texcoco.
2241
catedral cuauhtemoc
elevation (ft.)
iztapalapa alvaro obregon benito juarez
2228 1891
1910
1935
1960
1985
2000
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Below :: Ground cracks are seen in the Chalco neighborhood of Mexico City. Bottom :: Structural settling is seen in a 19th century building in the Zocalo district.
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Subsidence in Mexico City in the 20th century.
Lake Texcoco
Lake Chalco
10 4 cm/yr
25 cm/yr
6 sinking ground
10 cm/yr
2
water extraction
cm 1910
1880
1891
1910
1935
1960
1950
1985
1985
2000
2000
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Below :: Ground cracks are seen in the Chalco neighborhood of Mexico City. Bottom :: Structural settling is seen in a 19th century building in the Zocalo district.
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Population growth in Mexico City demonstrating a majority of growth is the result of informal housing in less expensive rural areas.
mil 19
Rent Control Law Enacted
2 mil metropolitan area
federal district 1900
1945 2000
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Santiago de Tlatelolco, the Plaza de Tres Culturas, the Aztec ruins, and Tlatelolco are seen in an aerial photograph.
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Park space in Tlatelolco. Most open park spaces were the resultant of the 1985 Earthquake, where several structures were demolished and parks were established.
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Below :: Santiago de Tlatelolco and the Aztec ruins are seen from the promenade. Bottom :: The Plaza de Tres Culturas is seen with Santiago de Tlatelolco directly behind.
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Below :: The entrance to the church is seen in the foreground with the history museum in distance. Bottom :: The towers of Tlatelolco seen rising above the Aztec ruins.
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Left :: Agora de Tlatelolco, a public park along the edge of the green space and the parking seen in the distance. Center :: A skate park in seen along the western edge of the park, along a residential housing structure. Center Below :: Ricardo Flores Magnon is seen looking south from Tlatlelco. The surrounding neighborhood is seen in the distance with office towers and residential apartment buildings. Bottom :: A covered walkway in Tlatelolco.
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Site Plan of Tlatelolco and surrounding neighborhood CuauhtĂŠmoc, Mexico City.
the in
a
rm
seo
ref o
d
boule vard m
anuel
gonza
lez
pa
el a
ricar do fl
ores
mag
non
boulevard central
niente
ue
orte sn nte ge r su in
boulev ard po
av en
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Below :: The central park space with walkways to residential buildings. Bottom :: In between the residential buildings. These spaces act as a psychological zahuan to the individual entrances.
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Below :: A walkway is seen in between a residential structure and a government building. Bottom :: The parking area is butted up against ground floor retail of one of the high rise buildings in Tlatelolco.
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The diagrams below demonstrate the urban density and streetscape development of major cities. Mexico City, in contrast to Houston and New York, does not embrace the streetscape, but rather the privatized interior space.
East End, Houston
Brooklyn Heights, New York
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Cuauhtemoc, Mexico City
Jurisdictional boundaries of the Distrito Federal and the Estado de Mexico.
elevation
2241
catedral
cuauhtemoc iztapalapa alvaro obregon benito juarez
2228 1891
1910
1935
1960
1985
2000
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Left :: Agora de Tlatelolco, a public park along the edge of the green space and the parking seen in the distance. Center :: The parking area is seen from adjacent a major street. Center Below :: A covered rotunda is pictured below, seen in the middle of the park. Bottom :: An entrance to the low rise residential building.
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PRIVATE GARDEN
WALKWAY
NO CONNECTION
HOUSING
COVERED SEMI-PRIVATE WALKWAY GARDEN
PRIVATE GARDEN
PARKING
INCONSISTENT CONNECTION
PUBLIC GARDEN
NO CONNECTION
AVENUE
INCONSISTENT CONNECTION
CUAUHTEMOC
Section through Tlatelolco showing the different psychological layers evident in the site.
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Left :: Psychological boundaries seen in Tlatelolco, including the Plaza de Tres Culturas and the open gardens of buildings that were destroyed in the 1985 earthquake. Right :: The palimpsest of Mexico City, seen as overlaps between the Aztec, Colonial, and Mexico time periods.
a
rm
od e
la ref o
boule vard m
anuel go
nzalez
se
n agno res m o flo ricard iente ur ins
es nt ge
rte no
rd pon
bouleva
av en ue
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pa
boulevard central
Montezuma becomes ruler
Aztecs claim island on Lake Texcoco
Aztec city-state
Aztec Settlement
1440
1325
Rise and Fall of the Palimpsest
Nonoalco Tlatelolco
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Templo Mayor constructed
1487
Hernan Cortes arrives in Mexico
1519
Cortes conquers Aztecs
1521
Mexico City rebuilt and named New Spain
1522
Templo de Santiago constructed
~ 1675
Spanish Colonization
Mexico City experiences torrential flooding from drained Lake Texcoco
1629
1824
Mexican Republic formed
Spanish Colonization
War of Independence with Spain
1810
Grand Drainage Canal completed : Lake Texcoco drained
1900
Civil War erupts in Mexico
~ 1920
Tlatelolco housing project constructed
1950
Tlatelolco Massacre
1968
20th Century Mexico City
Mexico City wins bid for 1968 Olympics
1963
Mexico City Earthquake 8.1 Richter scale
1985
Aztec city-state
17th century cathedral
Nonoalco Tlatelolco
Left :: Aerial photograph of Tlatelolco under construction in the 1960’s. Right :: The palimpsest of Mexico City, seen as overlaps between the Aztec, Colonial, and Mexico time periods.
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ave nu
program e in
s ur gen t
Torre Insignia Issste 1
es n
office
ort e
Parque de Juegos Sports Complex
housing
Clinica Nuero Escuela Fray Melchor e boulevard ponient
Parroquia de Santiago Tlatelolco Jardin de la Paz site
Tlatelolco Metro Tlatelolco Market
ricardo flores magnon
Sports Complex
health
Hospital General Gonzalo Castaneda
l entra
c vard boule
alez boulevard manuel gonz
Central Cultural Tlatelolco Plaza de Tres Culturas Santiago de Tlatelolco Torre Tlatelolco
park
Jardin Santiago Deportivo Antonio Caso Escuela Secondaria #6
infrastructure history
Escuela Francesco Medina
pase o de
la re for m
a
religious education
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50
slice swell shift stack
landscape
public
landscape
housing
housing
+
landscape
public
landscape
housing
housing
+
landscape
public
landscape
housing
housing
+
landscape
public
landscape
housing
housing
These diagrams show the programmatic strategies employed in the project. The program is stacked vertically throughout the site while the elements shift, swell, and slice in the landscape.
Design Concept and Strategy
In Tlatelolco, historical traces of three cultures of the past remain in the palimpsest of the site. This idea is paralleled in the in the architecture of housing typologies in Mexico City and correlates to the idea of boundary within Tlatelolco. The entirety of the site is seen in stark contrast to the surrounding neighborhood in the idea of scale and organization, as the structures in Tlatelolco are seen as objects occupying space within the vast landscape. Individual layers in the site, such as parking, landscape, park space, and housing structures occupy the space as hyper objects, creating invisible psychological volumes of space inside the modernist development. These ideas stem from the Vecindad projects of the early eighteenth century and the implementation of the zahuan and patio. These elements objectified the idea of public space within housing units by creating indivisible boundaries within the sequence of entering a private housing building by manipulating light and interior volume to signify transition from public to private space. The zahuan signifies the entrance to the housing building and is designed to be a
narrow, and dark corridor to “cleanse� one as they enter into the private spaces within the housing structure. Upon passing through the zahuan space, the patio on the interior of the building is framed by each of the individual housing units to create a volumetric lit space that is open to the sky, signifying transition from the zahuan as well as creating a public space for the inhabitants to interact. This idea of light and volume as transition is seen within the interior architecture of the unit, creating a low dark space at the entrance of the unit with the utility functions of the unit with kitchen and bathroom spaces opening up to a double height living space. The lofted bedroom space is placed above the kitchen, also facing the courtyard. These cultural characteristics in architecture are seen in traces within new typologies. These cultural traces are visible in parallel to the historical growth of the city through the three cultural time periods and their destructive development cycle. The palimpest, while attempting to create a tabula rasa, in turn utilizes past characteristics in attempt to institutionalize architecture to frame a new era of Mexico. 51
boundaries
physical cultural
landscape
public
landscape
housing
psychological
scale
scaleless
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housing
parking
landscape
public
private
housing
public
housing
landscape
The adjacent diagram depicts the scaleless psychological boundaries and how these elements are placed horizontally in the site. The elements within the new housing project rescale these programmatic elements vertically to emphasize human scale.
This project aims combine cultural characteristics from these housing typologies and implement these ideas in order to engage the hyper objects in the site by using light and volume as a transitional element within the architecture of the housing units and surrounding urban space. The project’s site intersects each of the hyper objects seen in Tlatelolco and occupies the landscape in order to realign the historical palimpsest within the site and challenge the psychological boundary of scale of the housing structures. The housing elements evident in the site are vertically stacked in contrast to the psychological boundaries that exist in the site. These elements of landscape, housing, and light intersect each other within the sight to cut and carve the house to create psychological boundaries of space between individual units and interior spaces to reinforce cultural characteristics of public and private space within the unit.
These elements in turn realign the psychological boundaries in the site by creating transitional elements with the housing project to identify and create transition between the site’s programmatic elements. The new housing structure bridges between and crashes into the existing modernist buildings by stretching and swelling objectified space within the existing housing units to create outdoor private space. The public courtyard is interjected into the static space between the low-rise housing structures and existing canopy to recreate transition into these buildings and pull public space from the objectified zahuan and courtyard spaces. This courtyard with private units creates a private public zone to retrofit the existing courtyard spaces on the interior of existing structures in order to create a psychological zone of transition into the existing buildings by allowing the light to puncture through the housing and landscape layers.
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The diagram below depicts the cultural, physical and psychological boundaries evident on an urban scale within Tlatelolco.
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landscapes + boundaries :: physical :: cultural :: psychological
In section, the vertically stacked layers stretch towards the sky and to the ground, cutting through the dense existing tree canopy, creating light wells and conical landscape elements to bring light into these housing units and the interrupt the psychological volumes in Tlatelolco. The housing unit swells upon the interior psychological boundaries within these two elements, creating various volumetric spaces along the interior to signify transition between various elements of the housing program.
Although modernist architecture is new in scale and form, the objectification of contemporary life is not altogether new, and it has built off of the objectification and violence of destruction seen in the history of Mexico City. The housing structures in Tlatelolco and identified typologies in Mexico City share similar characteristics in the organization of programmatic space.
This project exposes modernism during its peak was meant to be the ultimate answer to urbanism in the twentieth century. Spaces were created to have a single use that fit together perfectly in a site where every element worked together to create the idea of democratic architecture, creating equality in the overall design. Modernism in Mexico was implemented in the same way as the previous civilizations in Mexico, by razing the past built form in favor of the architecture of the new age.
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Below :: A massing study demonstrates how the volume of space stretches and swells as it interacts within the different programmatic spaces in Tlatelolco. Right :: The diagrammatic series of images depicts the range of light and volume as one transitions through spaces to enter an apartment unit.
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streetscape
57
zahuan
public courtyard
interior dwelling
Below :: An initial massing study demonstates how the housing structure intercepts the various psychological boundaries in Tlatelolco, depicted with string. Right :: The section diagram to the right shows the scaleless boundaries that are sensed between the idential housing structures.
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flatscapes
perspective
perception + understanding
59
[
60
Below :: A geometry study of the housing units components and how the waffle slab of the canopy begins to inform the psychological volume of the housing units. Left :: An initial rendering showing how the housing structures canopy swells and stretches along the ground in between the structures.
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light as transition :: three dimensional manipulation in light and volume
canopy
housing
light
landscape
Below :: A section depicts the scalelessness of the residential buildings facade and tree canopy within Tlatelolco.
light as transition :: mexican culture lost in modernist planning
Left :: The diagrams to the left show how the layers of volumes begin to intersect each other within the site and how these volumes stretch and swell within the urban psychological volumes.
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The schematic rendering below depicts the use of light and volumes of landscaping to create transition in between existing housing buildings.
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Drawings and Models
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traces
modernist housing
traces
Aztec ruins
Catholic church
Left :: A section through Tlatelolco reveals how the three time periods of Mexico City intersect within the physical palimpsest and how traces of the past begin to bubble up within these layers.
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Right :: A site map of the central core of Tlatelolco demonstrates the psychological and physical boundaries that exist within the site.
parking boundary
park boundary
housing boundary
plaza boundary
landscape boundary
periphery boundary
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periphery boundary
public boundary
institutional boundary
housing boundary
plaza boundary
parking boundary
The diagrams below demonstrate how the housing project intersects the existing buildings and the programmatic zones. The bottom image shows how canopy and light volumes penetrate into the housing volume to create light as a transitional element between urban space.
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The diagrams below depict the urban scale of Tlatelolco with the neighborhood and show how the psychological boundaries are interconnected within the site along a timeline.
“was not victory, nor defeat, that was the painful birth of this mestizo town that is today Mexico�
August 13, 1521 :: Defeat of the Aztecs
January 15, 1522 :: Santiago de Tlatelolco
October 2, 1968 :: Tlatelolco Massacre
May 28, 1985 :: Mexico City Earthquake
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Below :: A site model depicts how the project injects scale within Tlatelolco. Right :: A site map of housing project and surrounding area shows the proximity of the Plaza de Tres Culturas.
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1
4
2
3
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Below :: The floor plan of the interior units depicts how the project begins to pull from the exterior of the existing housing. The interior space between the low rise structure, seen in the center, crashes into the existing housing building to recreate space within the unit and cut and carve exisiting space to initiate light and volume as transition between existing and new units. Left :: A rendering depicts how the project bridges and hangs between structures and swells within the different programmatic zones.
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recreation
patio
exterior
interior
public space
Vecindad :: ~1750
Casa Barragan :: 1942
housing
housing
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public space
recreation
Below :: Tlaloc programmatic housing diagrams. Left :: Programmatic diagrams of Casa Barragan and the Vecindad. All of these housing typologies utilized public and private variations of architecture components such as stairs within the individual units.
public space
recreation
Tlaloc :: 1985
patio
zahuan
unit
housing
75
76
unit
patio
Tlatelolco :: 1950
zahuan
ethnic panel detail
housing public space recreation
Left :: A series of diagrams showing the programmatic division of spaces within the low rise buildings of Tlatelolco. The zahuan and patio, originating from Vecindad housing projects, have been objectified into individual entrances inside the building for each 12 units.
Below :: A series of diagrams showing how the interior spaces work within the new housing project. The interior volumes are a resultant of light and volume as a means of transition within the unit, utilizing elements of the architecture from past typologies to strengthen the cultural characteristics in order to strengthen the relationships between the objectification of spaces within modern architecture.
Light + Volume :: Transition
Light + Volume :: Transition
garden transition
living
private living
kitchen + bath transition
bedroom 77
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Left :: A perspective of the interior public space of the existing housing structures. The new housing project bridges and swells between the existing housing and punctures light through the canopy from the light wells, acknowledging transition from the exterior public space into the residential buildings.
Below :: A section model depicts the interior and exterior space of the central area of the housing and how the units at this space begin to crash into the existing housing buildings. The patio space is carved out of the center to allow light to puncture through the canopy.
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Below :: A cross section that depicts how the structure attached to the existing building and begins to utilize space. The interior volumes of the housing are created through the psychological volume in between the light wells and the existing canopy. Left :: A rendering depicts how the housing light wells begin to disappear into the landscape.
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Below :: A site section through the Cuauhtemoc neighborhood and Tlatelolco.
landscape occupies architecture
architecture occupies landscape
Left :: An image shows the interior public park space inside Tlatelolco.
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The rendering below shows the patio space of the housing units in between the existing buildings. Light, volume and landscape create psychological boundaries on the interior public space to pull and stretch interior zahuan spaces from the existing buildings.
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The rendering below depicts how the housing units begin to dissipate into the landscape inside the park.
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The image below shows a close photograph of the massing model within the site model of Tlatelolco.
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The image below depicts the transition space between the psychological volumes within Tlatelolco.
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25 million
scale
Historical housing precedents chronologically arranged comparing the use of landscape and architectural scale. These images are of the precedents are superimposed on a graph depicting population growth within the Federal District and surrounding urban areas.
landscape
1900
U M RB EX A IC N O C
.25 million
IT Y
D
CT RI T IS
circulation
projects
1985
[ [
sq.ft 300,000 sq.ft 3,500 sq.ft
1947
88 casa barragan
tlaloc
recreation
landscape
housing
scale
1
80
[ [ [
L RA E D FE
1970
Precedents
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psychological | zahuan
cultural | patio
physical | dwelling
cultural | accesorias
physical | enclosure
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This series of diagrams depicts the architectural components of the vecindad as related to the idea of boundary within the precedent typologies. The sequence of diagrams demonstrates the use of light and volume to signify transition between programmatic zones.
Bottom Left :: View of zahuan and through to the public courtyard space. Bottom Center :: Patio in Colonia Roma Vecindad.
18th Century Vecindad Vecindad housing projects, the Republica de Columbia #56 ~1750 Mexico City, Mexico
result of upper class migration to suburbs in the 1940’s, led to the creation of multifamily housing inside Mexico City, redeveloped from existing upper class residences. These projects, while following the physical plan of old mansions, are centered around a central patio that acts as the energy core of the residences, where people interact and hold communal activities. These areas make up the majority of living areas because of space limits inside actual dwellings, which generally house several families in one or two room units.15
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Below :: Diagram of a vecindad unit. The main interior living area is comprised of a double height space with a lofted bedroom. Bottom :: Aerial photo of the vecindad in the city center.
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Bottom Left :: View of private gardens and patio as seen from the main living space. Bottom Center :: The stark front facade is seen from the street.
Barragan House + Studio Luis Barragan 1942 Tacubaya, Mexico City
The play of privacy and visibility are seen throughout the front and back halves of the house. Towards the front, high windows are used to let light in but maintain privacy, whereas large windows open up the back to the garden. Since the back of the house opens up to private space as opposed to the public street at the front of the house, Barragan is able to manipulate the windows accordingly.
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The diagram below demonstrates the transitional space that exists between main programmatic elements in plan.
garden
dining
living
studio
library
Service
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Public
Office
Below :: View of private roof terrace is seen with the signature bright hues of Barragan’s work. Bottom :: The main living space, depicted below, is separated from the private library by a half wall.
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Left :: Tlaloc, depicted in the diagram below, is separated by three boundaries evident in historical housing typologies. Cultural boundaries in the site demonstrate the use of private staircases within each unit to access public and private zones separated into each level. Below Right :: The image below shows Tlaloc at its inception, with the facade and ground floor retail facing Tlatelolco.
cultural
physical
psychological
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Tlaloc Alberto Kalach 1985 Cuauhtemoc, Mexico City
Tlaloc compromises a multifamily housing project adjacent to Tlatelolco in the Cuauhtemoc neighborhood in Mexico City. These apartments are structured around a central courtyard on three sides with parking garage beneath and on the adjacent side of the garden courtyard space. The individual units are organized so that each share a core stair with only one other unit, reinforcing intimacy while private staircases provide access in the two story unit. These spaces, while private, are further separated from the street by retail spaces along the major boulevard and parking spaces wrapping around the buildings along the smaller streets.
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Left :: The diagram depicts the physical, psychological, and cultural boundaries seen in the modernist development. These are seen throughout Pani’s work which shows the Mexican culture that was injected into modernist architecture.
core living
zahuan + azotehuela
stairwell
rooftop plaza
Below :: The image shows the housing buildings after completion in 1950. PHYSICAL
Below Right :: The image shows the residential buildings and how they occupy the vast green landscape.
ethnic panel detail
gardens public
private
public
PUBLIC
PRIVATE
UNIT PUBLIC
PSYCHOLOGICAL
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CULTURAL
BUILDING SECTION
PRIVATE
Presidente Juarez Urban Housing Project Mario Pani 1950 Mexico City
Pani’s first modern development, on the outskirts of Mexico City, utilized several of Corbusier’s modernist ideals in the construction of the city’s larger developments from his Unite Habitacion. These projects though, designed around local cultural preferences, are seen in the modus viviendi of Mexican 16 people. With the urbanization of Mexico City in the 1960’s with people moving from the country, these spaces were meant to appeal to families moving from the rural areas by responding to their needs of city living. Pani separated interior volumes by providing bedrooms and public living spaces on separate levels, with private interior stairs.
These strategies establish boundary space between the main living areas and the single loaded corridor for circulation, as well as interior zones between bedrooms and living spaces. These developments, in contrast to the surrounding neighborhoods, create space where these structures occupy the landscape of the gardens, rather than create landscape through intimate small scale architecture of the city’s vecindad projects.
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Bibliography
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