Urban Lakes is located in the area of the former Lake Texcoco, a 170 square kilometer derelict piece of land to the east of Mexico City. Lake Texcoco is a dried out lakebed. It displays a number of natural hazards and ecological sensitivities, such as flooding and bird migration.

Urban Lakes proposes to turn this derelict area into an Urban Ecological Park. This enables Lake Texcoco to become ecologically balanced as well as to develop into a relevant source of income for its inhabitants and a recreational area for the City of Mexico.

An engineering technique, the pumping induced consolidation, is used to design a prototype for ground formation. This allows for the flat topography to turn into a series of flood basins. The saline water gained from the pumping is collected and sold to the alkali industry, which renders the project auto-financing. The land formation resulting from the pumping operations is inhabited by agricultural and ecological programs.

The prototypical earth formation is tested on the site of Lake Texcoco. Four scenarios serve to explore the performance of the generic configuration in different programmatic conditions. The aim is to establish a setting that unites the ecological necessities with specific living conditions and the recreational use of the area. That way the ecological and urban systems present on the site can start to work as one.

MA Landscape Urbanism 2005 – Architectural Association London
Karola Dierichs
Supervisors: Eva Castro, Leyre Asensio-Villoria, David Mah, Eduardo Rico