We were invited to generate a project that help redefine the physical identity of the Municipality of Naucalpan. This meant to generate a plaza which would “link” the city hall and the courtyard of the Church of San Bartolo. Naucalpan industry grew sharply from the 80’s and through the entire decade of the 90’s. Lately, this industrial activity has shifted to other areas of both the municipality and the metropolitan area of Mexico City; This forces a reassessment and / or redefinition of Naucalpan’s territorial development, this point of view opened us the door to further research on the project.
Certain processes of redefinition and urban development may be referred to nuclear attractors schemes, intended to link evolutionary strategies, in a short, medium and long term. By making a lecture the area we identified several subutilized or abandoned buildings and many other urban elements (streets, lots) that reinforced the idea of generating a much broader strategy to go beyond the development of a square. Evolutionary “nuclear” strategies are based on sequences between discontinuous areas of activity, which interconnect by channels and travel links. We generated a Matrix defined by potential attractors and uses that could function as generators of activity and be part of this sequence of attractors.
The references provided were the Municipal Building, an abandoned movie theater on the corner of Via Gustavo Baz North and peripheral (to be reused as an Arts and Crafts Factory “FARO”), the space where you would place the New Alameda invited us to design and connects directly to the atrium and the Church of San Bartolo, then a cobbled street with little traffic in the area which contained among others colonial low rise buildings and a vacant lot (which would be reused as an occupational center / urban garden), a square/park already built at the end of the cobbled street, and all the way to the Los Remedios River (which also was proposed to be rescued) and ending at the Pyramid of El Conde, an archaeological site belonging to Naucalpan, forgotten and just a few meters of the “periferico norte” highway.
Such sequence will form the “Development Strategy” and this are not strictly continuous axis or paths, but interactional circuits, syncopated and intermittent, landscapes intertwined. This effective approach allow us to define basic operative trajectories as a way to define some “horizons of certainty”, to the population that lives within the area.
We aim to generate an open public space that generates a triggering loop of activity which help to regenerate this post industrial area.
“Open as not non-conclusive, non-confined
Open as undetermined, “unfinished”
Evolutive, lively, restless and released.
Open as, not-limited and limiting, because is uninhibited and unfettered: casual.
Open because is externalized. Relational. Relaxed and spontaneous.
Open also for dialogue, for non-essential. Open because is alterable, willing to exchange.
The more flexible the more in-disciplined. The more dynamic the more informal, uninhibited and extroverted.”
-Manuel Gausa