Orange Mobile Workshop: Social arrangements and infrastructure – Stimulate stakeholders

Mobile workshop experts
	Jose Castillo, Mexico Principal, arquitectura 911sc; Lecturer, School of Architecture, Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA)
	Enrique Martín-Moreno, Mexico Professor of Architecture, Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA)

Faro de Oriente: Social community project
The cultural center “Fábrica de Artes y Oficios” is located in the Iztapalapa, one of the poorest areas of Mexico City. More than 80% of its almost 2 million inhabitants live in extreme poverty. An impressive concrete building designed by Mexican architect Alberto Kalach is a haven in the midst of neglect. The Faro de Oriente project by Mexico City’s Culture Department provides an alternative solution to conventional cultural intervention. Its goal is to create a diverse cultural impact and provide access and training to marginal populations – provided physically, economically and symbolically by Mexico City’s acclaimed cultural resources. It is a combination of an art school, a cultural space, and a public plaza. Through these elements it creates a new idea of cultural development where accessibility integrates to the everyday life of the citizens.

City of Nezahualcóyotl: Self-built city
The peripheral community of the City of Nezahualcóyotl (“Neza”), the largest unplanned community in Mexico, becomes the paradigm of informal development. Since its inception in the 1950s, the city-suburb has grown in only 40 years into a 4,000ha city with some 1.5 million inhabitants. Numerous economic, political and environmental factors have contributed to this exponential growth. Its development is closely related to the drainage operations of Lake Texcoco in the Mexico City Valley. Neza developed both through illegal land subdivisions and sales by developers defaulting on the provision of service. It began as an informal settlement; the area was developed prior to the provision of city services. The architecture and urban space in Neza have no fixed image: they are constantly evolving. Neza has become a fully mature city with a level of social interaction, plurality, and spatial complexity to which other “planned” communities can only aspire. Despite its deficiencies, this settlement has developed a distinct and often successful urbanity. The banal, vulgar, generic, and sometimes mediocre qualities of the built environment are overcome through creative transgressions and subversions that take place every day.

Grupo Carso: Ciudad Jardín Bicentenario
An area which was formerly a 10 million ton wasteland adjacent to the Xochiaca border will be transformed into a social and economic asset enabling further urban development of the City of Nezahualcóyotl (“Neza”). The USD 160 million project is funded by the Mexican government, the City of Nezahualcóyotl and private developers. On completion, the revitalized area will house 67.5ha of sport facilities, and not only provide spaces for social interaction, but will also create more than 5,000 jobs, generate 3,000kw of electricity, 5 million liters of recycled water, and self-finance maintenance through the sale of methane gas produced by the waste disposal. Ciudad Jardín Bicentenario is symbolic of Mexico’s aspirations for sustainable urban development. It is an innovative and exemplary project, and commemorates 200 years of Mexican independence.

Tlatelolco Housing Project
The Tlatelolco Housing Project, built by Mario Pani Darqui (1911-1993) – one of Mexico’s foremost architects – represents the most extreme example of addressing the Mexico City’s housing problem during the 20th century by modern architecture and urban planning. The project aimed to solve and rationalize urban chaos and was instigated by Mario Pani’s concern for the country’s rapid demographic growth. This macro development abides to the modern movement urban proposals within a drastically different scale than that of the surrounding city. It had 1000 units per hectare, 75% of green areas and the buildings had all the services included. It was planned for 15,000 units, distributed in different multi-family buildings. The repetitive and abstract character of the buildings but most of all the sheer scale of the whole development, contributed to the disenchantment with the project not too long after it was finished. During the 1985 earthquakes, 500 people died in Tlatelolco as a result of the collapse of the Nuevo León building. An additional six buildings were severely damaged and had to be demolished some years later, adding to the perception of the unfeasibility of this urban and architectural model.