Sueños con...

2022
Project Website
Leventhal Center for Advanced UrbanismSarah Williams, Director
Alberto Meouchi, Project Manager
Jariyaporn Prachasartta
Enrique Casillas
Doris Qingyi Duanmu
Huiwen Shi
Niko McGlashan
Deni López
Illana Strauss

Digital Structures LabCaitlin Mueller, Director
Edu Gascón
Tim Cousin
Mohamed Ismail
Sandy Curth
Kiley Feickert
Leslie Norford

Future Urban CollectivesRafi Segal, Director
Marisa Morán Jahn, Collaborating artist
Maria Rius Ruiz- NUA arquitectures
Patricia Dueñas Gerritsen
Jungmin Lee
Karla Mejia

Mota Engil México | LabCiudadesOnésimo Flores
Sergio Haua
Ivar Castillo
Jorge Cerrilla
Oscar Vera
Gemi González

Structural DesignCaitlin Mueller, Director
Edu Gascón
Tim Cousin
Mohamed Ismail

ECHALEFrancesco Piazzesi
Gretel Uribe Campos
Eduardo Piedrola
Eduardo Banda
Fernanda Herrejón
Javier Velasco
Gustavo García

NEW STORYVictor Mendoza
Sandra Prieto

ManufacturaDinorah Martínez Schulte
Aleida Rahel

Anfora StudioSaúl Rivera
Sofia Priscila

Formas de Fibra y VidrioJacinto Hernández Espindola

Research and Design of Dream TicketsClaudia Ortiz Chao
Maria Moreno
Carina Arvizu
Carlos Flores
Santiago Fernández

ConstructionLa Invencible

OverviewA participatory, architectural installation featured in the Mextrópoli Architecture and City Festival (September 21-25, 2022), Dreams of Fiber/Timber, Earth/Concrete unfolds stories about Mexico City through four materials, their provenance, and their promise for the future. Through its critical adaptation of traditional papercraft, creative reuse of recycled wood, and innovative use of earth and concrete, this site-responsive installation invites us to recognize the palimpsest of Mexico City’s histories and imagine new possibilities.

Dreams of Fiber/Wood
Sueños con Fiber/Timber reflects on the past and future of Mexico City. Built from wood recycled from the city’s iconic rollercoaster (La Feria’s Montaña Rusa), the pavilion adapts the pre-Columbian art form known as papel picado (perforated paper) whose openings invite ancestors to pass through to the present.

Dreams of Fiber/Timber is the first structure constructed from the salvaged wood of la Montaña Rusa which was donated by the developer Mota-Engil chosen to reconstruct and renovate the recently closed amusement park, renamed as Parque Aztlan. Built in 1964, La Montaña Rusa captured the imagination of millions visiting La Feria, Mexico’s first amusement park. Like the other large scale urban projects built in Mexico City in the same decade, the rollercoaster captured an era of massive socio-economic transitions and accompanying civic infrastructural development.

A Meso-American art form influenced by China and other cultures, papel picado’s perforations are seen as apertures between past and present. In Mexico, this artform is often associated with the Day of the Dead because the paper was principally created from the fibrous Amate tree (Ficus insipidus) whose prominent, above-ground roots were regarded as portals to the underworld. These spiritual-vegetal associations, along with the paper’s flexibility and absorptive qualities made Amate paper the primary medium used in pre-contact codices. As a key way that the Aztec/Mexica people preserved and shared knowledge, amate paper was regarded as a threat to colonial order. Spanish settlers soon banned the use and production of Amate paper, and production facilities were destroyed. The tradition, however, was kept alive in a few locations located outside the city.

Situated at the corner of the historic Alameda Square, the pavilion creates a new urban space of gathering and reflection. Activating the space at night, the pavilion’s lighting design emerged from dialogues with the Otomi artisans who produced the Amate paper for this pavilion.

Dreams of Concrete
explores the future of affordable housing in Mexico by minimizing the material impact of existing construction methods. The horizontal roof structure takes the existing vigueta y bovedilla system as a starting point, optimizing the shape of the precast reinforced concrete beams to minimize the use of material and its associated environmental impact by 50% compared to conventional systems. This elegant geometry, sculpted by varying width and depth along the beam’s span, is enabled by recent computational design methods developed in MIT research. The fabrication is achieved through fiberglass molds that allow for multiple casting cycles. Sueños con Concrete lies at the intersection of local construction techniques and new digital fabrication technologies, resulting in a collaboration between industry, social enterprise, and academia as a model toward a more sustainable built environment.

Dreams of...

This piece allows the public to think, share, and showcase their aspirations for a better urban future in Mexico City. The interactivity comprises three actions: the Dream Tickets, the Instagram Share Station, and an Inspiration Wall.

Dream Tickets seek to make the public reflect on their ideal city. Visitors take a Dream Ticket from a ticket roll, inspired by how a theme park or a roller coaster functions. After taking the tickets, visitors are asked to draw or write about their dreams on specific urban topics, such as Health, Inclusive City, Housing, Mobility, Public Space, and Innovation. Each card has an "Opening," an inspirational fact, or a prompt to invite citizens to share their dreams. Both the Dream Tickets and the Openings in them were co-designed by a team of experts in the urban and innovation fields.

Once visitors draw their dreams, they share with the world their Dream Ticket in the Instagram Share Station, which uploads the ticket directly to the exhibition Instagram account @sueñoscon_CDMX.

After sharing their dreams on social media, visitors tear out the bottom portion of the Dream Ticket, the Opening, to hang it on the Inspiration Wall. The Inspiration Wall mirrors a collection of dreams from Mextropoli visitors inviting them to crowdsource, shape, and transform the city's future together.

Publications1. Ismail, M. and Mueller, C. “Minimizing embodied energy of reinforced concrete floor systems in developing countries through shape optimization,” Engineering Structures, 246, 112955, 2021.

2. Gascón Alvarez, E., Stamler, N., Mueller, C., and Norford, L. “Shape optimization of chilled concrete ceilings – Reduced embodied carbon and enhanced operational performance,” Building and Environment, vol. 221, p. 109330, Jun. 2022.

3. Broyles, J., Hartwell, A., Gascón Alvarez, E., Ismail, M., Norford, L., Mueller, C. Brown, N. “Shape optimization of a concrete floor system for sustainability, acoustical, and thermal objectives.” Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Structures and Architecture, Portugal, 2022.

4.Ismail, M., Mayencourt, P. and Mueller, C. “Shaped beams: Unlocking new geometry for efficient structures,” Architecture, Structures, Construction, 2021.

5.Ismail, M. and Mueller, C. “A platform of design strategies for the optimization of concrete floor systems in India,” Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Structures and Architecture, Portugal, 2019.

6. Gascón Alvarez, E., Mueller, C. and Norford, L. “Dynamic thermal performance of structurally optimized concrete floor slabs,” Proceedings of Building Simulation 2021 Conference, Bruges, Belgium, 2021.

7. Feickert, K. and Mueller, C. “Thin shell foundations: Historical review and future opportunities,” Proceedings of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS) Symposium 2020/2021, Surrey, UK 2021.
Press
1. Portal Diario Presente - "Donan madera de la montaña rusa de Chapultepec para crear mobiliario urbano"

2. Portal El Sol de México - "Donan madera de la montaña rusa de Chapultepec para crear mobiliario urbano"

3. Impreso El Sol de México - "Donarán la madera de la montaña rusa"

4. Portal Publimetro - "¡Lleve su recuerdito! Usarán madera de la montaña rusa de Chapultepec para mobiliario y esculturas"

5. Portal The Coaster Zone - "De Montaña Rusa En Chapultepec A Obra Urbana En La Alameda Central"

6. YouTube The Coaster Zone - "De Montaña Rusa en La Feria de Chapultepec a obra urbana en la Alameda Central"

7. Portal La Agenda Pública - "CONOCE EL PABELLÓN HECHO CON MADERA DE LA MONTAÑA RUSA DE CHAPU"

8. Portal Real State Market - "Dan nuevo uso a madera reciclada de la montaña rusa de Chapultepec"

9. Portal Telediario - "Mextrópoli, pabellón hecho con material reciclado de la extinta Montaña Rusa"

10. Televisión ADN 40 - "En Tiempo real pt.1 to pt.5"

11. Portal CDMX Secreta - "Conoce el pabellón hecho con madera de la montaña rusa de Chapu"

12. Portal Clase Turista - "De Chapultepec a la Alameda Central"

13. Portal Corresponsales MX - "De Chapultepec a la Alameda Central"

14. Portal Diario Momento - "De Chapultepec a la Alameda Central"

15. Twitter Imagen estratégica - "Mota Engil y el Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism del MIT reutilizan madera de montaña rusa para impulsar construcción sustentable."

16. Portal Síntesis del golfo - [De Chapultepec a la Alameda Central]

17. Portal Lado.mx - "Conoce el pabellón hecho con madera de la montaña rusa de Chapu"
18. Portal Life & Style - "De Chapultepec a la Alameda Central"

19. Portal MSN Mexico - [Visita la instalación hecha con madera reciclada de la montaña rusa de Chapultepec del Pabellón “Sueños Con”]

20. Portal Noticen El Faro - [El Faro 23 de septiembre 2022]

21. Portal Periodismo y Ambiente - [De Chapultepec a la Alameda Central]

22. Portal Poligrafo digital - [Pabellón “Sueños con, De Chapultepec a la Alameda Central"]

23. Portal Revista Digital Booking - [Sueños Con llega a la Ciudad de México]

24. Portal Style Shock Visual - [De Chapultepec a la Alameda Central]

25. Twitter Newsweek Español - [Este miércoles regresó a la Ciudad de México el festival de arquitectura más importante de América]

26. Portal Yo Influyo - ["Sueños Con” es el pabellón que te invita a pensar en una ciudad innovadora]

27. Twitter Yo Influyo - [Inauguración del pabellón “Sueños con”]
28. Portal Al Chile… Poblano! - [De Chapultepec a la Alameda Central]

29. Portal Once Noticias - [Inicia el Festival de Arquitectura y Ciudad Mextrópoli en CDMX]

30. Portal Contraréplica - [Tiraditos]

31. Twitter Échale Festival - [#mextropoli en la Alameda Central]

32. Portal EdoMex Al Día - [De Chapultepec a la Alameda Central]

33. Portal El Capitalino - [Inauguran Pabellón «Sueños con» en la Alameda Central]

34. Twitter Los Supercívicos - [Todo un honor ser invitados x el MIT]

36. Portal Noticen.com.mx - "El Faro 23 de septiembre 2022. Por Lourdes Esparza Medina."

AcknowledgementsWe are grateful to the Mextropoli team, Miquel Adriá, Anna Adría, and Andrea Griborio

ImagesWalter Shintani, Dinorah Martínez Schulte

Cities Initiatives Mexico City

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Cities Initiatives
Mexico City