It took just three and a half days to erect this short-term six,000-square-metre construction in Mexico City’s Zócalo plaza, due to the fact architecture studio MMX chose to build it from scaffolding and canvas .
MMX, a staff of four architects based mostly in the city, developed the group of temporary buildings for the Feria de las Culturas – an yearly honest that promotes the cultures and traditions of other nationalities.
They chose to use steel scaffolding to create the structures, as they felt it offered the most versatile resolution and the fastest construction turnaround.
“The structural system has been deliberately picked as a response to the temporality and the assembling efficiency required,” explained architect Emmanuel Ramirez.
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“As a result, a triangulated scaffolding method is produced as 1 of the only choices that could make certain a 6,000-square-metre framework be assembled in only 3 and a half days,” he said.
The canvas panels were strung up among the metal beams to develop the impression of a folded origami-like volume.
“Although the scaffolding geometries define the volume of the inhabitable envelope, the facade mesh makes the structural 3-dimensional logic visible,” added the architect.
3 extended and narrow buildings were created within the square, oriented to line up with the buildings and streets that surround the website. These accommodated the various stands, which had been organised by region.
Where the three buildings met, a triangular pavilion was also built. With integrated bleacher-design seating manufactured from wooden boards, it formed a modest auditorium for staging various performances.
“In buy for the FCA to be profitable, as properly as to guarantee shade and comfort to visitors during the fair, the major plaza needed to be subdivided into smaller sized urban atmospheres,” said Ramirez.
“The diverse radial structures of the scheme reconfigure the Zócalo into three various public open spaces, altering the urban scale of the public realm.”
Dating back to the 15th century, Zocalo is the most important public space in the city and hosts the Feria de las Culturas every 12 months. The 2015 edition concluded on 27 Could.
MMX – whose tasks contain a concrete residence arranged all around gardens – described adding architecture to it a “excellent challenge”.
“There is no other room where it becomes evident that each and every single architectural intervention turns out to be political,” said the group.
“The Zocalo even so is dynamic and capable to cope with such diversity of temporary architectural explorations.”
Photography is by Rafael Gamo.
Venture credits:
Consumer: Foreing Affairs DF
Architect: MMX
MMX crew: Jorge Arvizu, Ignacio Del Rio, Emmanuel Ramirez, Diego Ricalde
Collaborators: Mariel Collard, Gonzalo Alvarez Tostado, Diego Albarran, Zabdiel Ramos
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