Chapultepec Environmental Culture Center / ERREqERRE Architecture and Urbanism
Text description provided by the architects. The Environmental Culture Center contemplates a pavilion surrounded by a set of gardens with a naturalistic design and an ethnobotanical appearance. These gardens refer to the different ecosystems and natural landscapes of the Valley of Mexico basin (temperate forests, grasslands, wetlands and pedregal vegetation) and are carefully integrated with the existing vegetation, topography and equipment of Chapultepec, thus optimizing and enhancing its great potential as an urban forest.
To access and enjoy these gardens, a series of biocultural walks have been incorporated which significantly improve pedestrian connectivity in this part of the forest. The Walks offer an immersive experience in nature and an educational rediscovery of the importance of natural elements in an urban forest and our relationship with them, thus transcending their mere connecting and aesthetic functionality.
The Biocultural Walks adopt paths in the form of a concentric spiral, providing continuity to the curved lines that define the outline of the Menor Lake. Its tours start from the existing cultural equipment at various points around the earth’s circumference and gather intuitively in the Center for Environmental Culture: a cultural node projected as an open public space that offers the opportunity to experience the close relationship between nature and the new. cultural and environmental dynamics. It consists of the duality and interaction between an open-air cultural space with a forum or circular square and an environmental pavilion that houses exhibitions focused on promoting environmental culture.
The project’s spatial design stems from the strategic location of the Center for Environmental Culture. It is delicately incorporated into the geometry of the lake and a natural slope with existing vegetation, which provides an optimal space to place a set of volcanic stone steps that serve as containment, rest and immersion for the new landscape or environmental setting.
The environmental pavilion is intended as another element in the landscape. Its semi-conical geometry and its black stone cladding on the 2,000 m² roofs refer to the volcanic landscapes of Pedregal and are subtly integrated into its natural and cultural environment. The result is a light, flexible, versatile and very easy-to-maintain pavilion. Its formal simplicity is accompanied by the conscious choice of optimal building systems and new technologies that minimize its carbon footprint and its impact on the environment.
The interior of the pavilion offers complete continuity and spatial flexibility that can accommodate and explore different museographic proposals, always allowing visual transparency towards its two external fronts: the gardens and the cultural space.
These characteristics highlight its versatility and spatial dynamism to accommodate the activities and exhibition programs that need some shelter and shade. The experience of feeling direct contact with the Gardens/Gardens is also favoured, giving the visitor a unique landscape from within the pavilion, reinforcing the importance of natural elements and the landscape in an educational and cultural environment.
This approach to the pavilion makes it possible to visualize the harmony, the direct interconnection and the fusion of the natural and the human, the existing and the project, and the landscape and the architecture. Where there used to be a parking lot for vehicles, there is now an Agroecological Zone with different plots of rotating crops, contained by stone walls like “tecorrals”. These offer a new landscape in harmony with the roof of the pavilion, while improving the environmental conditions of the space and promoting biodiversity. This area also seeks citizen participation through various educational, demonstration and agricultural production programs.
The project prioritizes the design principles of permaculture, which zones the space and regulates its level of maintenance according to proximity criteria, in this case to the Center for Environmental Culture. The irrigation system for the agro-ecological zone works by gravity. It begins its journey in Lago Menor and is distributed thanks to a visible master channel and several secondary channels with manual gates that optimize the use and management of water. The project provides a unique set of landscapes, feelings, encounters, activities and learning in the context of an urban forest, ensuring compliance with its ecosystem functions and becoming an active promoter of environmental culture.
