Critic: Tatiana Bilbao & Andrei Harwell

Yale School of Architecture | 2017
 

Recreation is often described as activities carried out when one is not working, but in Mexico City, and specifically in Atlampa, where low income is a concern and labor consumes the majority of one’s time, recreation becomes a lower priority and quality of life begins to deteriorate. As population densities rapidly increase, irregular and independent settlements develop within the crevices of urban structure. 

Understanding these types of economies and the dynamics of their everyday lives is crucial to determine what is appropriate for urban strategies. What are their assets and capabilities rather than their needs or absences? And how can Atlampa be the testing site for a supportive infrastructure to this type of urban growth? 

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The key aspects I focused on are flexibility and adaptation. With qualities such as lightness, transiency, functionality, portability, and dynamism, this type of architectural strategy would effectively represent and accommodate for the current and future population of Mexico City. The result was Morf-canica, a flexible system of joints that allows for a variable of forms and interchangeable parts to fit into any site context. Essentially, it is an architectural kit-of-parts.

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Responding to the different needs of the communities that build off of the mechanical structure, a multilevel circulation zone becomes populated with pockets of programmed spaces that interweave themselves into this architectural network.