Urban Improvement
for Tultitlan
Professional Work
Project Credit: ORU / Del Distrito / Taller Architects / Ricardo García Santander / Virens
Year: 2020
Location: Tultitlan, Mexico State. Mexico
Role: Urban Designer part of the core design team for Schematic Design and Design Development.
Client: Secretaría de Desarrollo Agrario, Territorial y Urbano (Mexican Federal agency in charge of agriculture, urban development and living space.)
Photography: Adriana Hamui, Del Distrito
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The Mexican federal government, through the Secretariat of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development (SEDATU), began an ambitious plan in 2019 called the Urban Improvement Program (PMU). With the aim of developing public works in the municipalities and neighborhoods with the greatest needs in the country, to date the federal government, through the PMU and its administration, has carried out approximately 1,000 works in 153 municipalities over 27 states. This quantity of state-driven public architecture and development has not been seen in Mexico since the mid-twentieth century.
ContextTultitlan is an industrial area deeply impacted by resource extraction, urban expansion, and poverty. It is one of the most marginal municipalities in the State of Mexico in the outskirts of Mexico City. These five projects take advantage of Tultitlan’s industrial legacy to create a shared material palette to revitalize the manufacturing and construction economy promoting local employment.
Tultitlan
Elena Poniatowska Agora & LibraryThe Elena Poniatowska Agora and Library is a 222-meter-long public complex located just north of Mexico City, 10km away from the new Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA). The project inserts a new pedestrian axis within an existing superblock-sized urban parcel, and contains a range of public programs relating to healthcare, arts, culture, and education. The pedestrian axis functions as both urban plaza and park. Arid gardens, seating, and lightweight metal pergolas cut down the site north to south and link to three new single-level buildings.
Real del Bosque Cultural CenterThe Real del Bosque Cultural Center is a 36,500-square-foot (3,388-square-meter) public facility located 2.7 miles southeast of Tultitlán’s historic center. Sited on a 12,000-square-meter site on the foothills of the Sierra de Guadalupe Mountain Range, the project functions as both cultural infrastructure for the local community and as an access point to the mountain state park. Due to its elevated site position, the project overlooks the municipality’s industrial landscape with a clear view to the México-Querétaro federal highway that connects the center of the country north to the U.S. border.
Bicentenario de la Independencia Sports UnitThe Bicentenario de la Independencia Sports Unit is a five-acre public park and sports complex located in the Izcalli del Valle neighborhood, 4.4 miles south of Tultitlán’s historic center. Developed for the E1 stage of the federal Urban Improvement Program (PMU), the project refurbishes existing playing fields and recreation facilities on site while introducing a series of new elements including landscape interventions, public access points, and a small community center at the plot’s southwestern edge.
Mariano Escobedo Municipal MarketThe Mariano Escobedo Municipal Market is a 1,690 square-meter (18,230 square-foot) public market located in the historic center of Tultitlan, two blocks away from the main square of the municipality. Prior to construction, an adapted warehouse building occupied the site and served as a local market for several decades. In 2019, local authorities demolished the structure due health risks related to a lack of maintenance and structural instability, poor ventilation, and overcrowding.
Responding to the limited dimensions of the site and a desire to increase the number of stalls for the benefit of market vendors and community members alike, the project pulls inspiration from spaces and typologies of mass commerce throughout Mexico. From the stalls of Mercado de la Merced and Tepito, commercial supermarkets, and big-box retail, the ceiling plane of these sites commonly acts as both roof and infrastructure, liberating space on the ground for the fluid movement of people and things.
Felipe Angeles Fire StationThe Felipe Ángeles Fire Station situates an essential public building within a neighborhood at the periphery of Tultitlan, and combines this effort with the creation of a clearly defined and legible community space. A perimeter structure of steel I-beams and elevated metal mesh panels frames the site plot and its activities.
The station includes a double-height garage for the storage and maintenance of vehicles, dormitories and leisure zones, administrative offices, and a small medical center. These programs, consolidated in an L-shaped volume, anchor a publicly accessible garden and plaza that are located within the perimeter structure. This act provides a secure public zone that is directly supported by the adjacent fire station.
An open-air basketball court located on the second level of the structure has the potential to further extend this dynamic into the building itself. Designed as a controlled site for exercise, this space will be opened to the surrounding community during specific events throughout the year, and accessed by means of the central training tower.
