Hybrid Supports, San Borja.

Our project is located west of Mexico City in the San Borja ravine, where we propose an alternative model of urbanization integrated into the environment. We achieved this through a set of architectural strategies linked by the “Hybrid Supports”: elements that hold together the infrastructural, social, contextual and environmental assets.

Our project seeks to generate alternative scenarios for urban regeneration by recognizing the quantitative and qualitative features of the built environment. In addition, we aim to create theoretical and methodological frameworks capable of bridging the tangible and the utopian. For this, we localized clusters of interconnected problems through a mapping matrix in peripheral areas of Mexico City. This matrix considered the historic evolution of the urban fabric as well as its environmental, infrastructural and human settlement components, leading our proposal towards San Borja. The detected pressing problems were confronted by recondition of the sewer system to clean the river and metabolize waste flows via local bio-industries. Additionally, the project reinforces the subsoil, preserves the ecological environment and improves mobility, while providing public space and urban services. These strategies are intertwined by the “Hybrid Supports”: The Riverbed, the Walkway and the Bridge, proposed for their symbolic, functional and binding connotations. This enables the landscape and infrastructure to hybridize an operative terrain where the natural environment and the human sphere work in synergy. The Riverbed restoration increases the biological diversity, the volume and quality of water, making it possible to carry out recreational activities, infiltrate water into the subsoil and reuse it. Walkway’s sinusoidal shape establishes a territorial dialogue that motivates local activities and pedestrian routes. This generates more porous facades that improve the safety of residents and visitors. The Bridge enhances local mobility and emphasizes the public aspect of San Borja by incorporating a mixture of functions, promoting the interaction of diverse population groups in public spaces enriched with local culture and identity. In this way, architecture becomes a designing instrument that integrates multiple aspects of contemporary urbanization into coherent and cohesive projects, turning specific problems into opportunities for sustainable regional development.