PILARES
PILARES (for its acronym: Points of Innovation, Freedom, Art, Education and Knowledge) is an urban project of social impact developed by the Government of Mexico City that aims to generate community centers for citizen encounters. The PILARES are strategically distributed in vulnerable areas of the city that lack cultural infrastructure. Our project is located in the Colonia Presidentes de México, Iztapalapa, one of the most densely populated municipalities in the city. The program includes a cyber school, arts and crafts workshops (serigraphy, jewelry, plumbing and gastronomy), sports facilities, a dance and yoga room, a vegetable garden, and rooms for entrepreneurship and job training. Since this area lacks open spaces, sports facilities, parks, plazas and gardens, PILARES Pedro Vélez was designed as a public, inclusive and multifunctional space that replaces the idea of barriers for meeting platforms. The main entrance is a fundamental part of the project as it connects the community center with the street activity through a green plaza delimited by an open sequence of columns that invites people to enter and inhabit the space. In the attempt to generate abundance from scarcity, only two materials were used: striated blocks and concrete tiles in a reddish tone and steel profiles in the same color palette. This materiality brings an iconic identity to the site and produces a series of textures of light and shadow that create an interpretation of the space in different layers and depths. Concrete is re-signified in different expressions to produce lattices that ventilate and tiles with changes of texture in the pavement. The creative use of this material allows a multilayered reading of the space: for example, the depression of a patio that functions as a forum also serves as a bench or as a meeting place. The architectural program distributes the forums and halls over two floors that are interconnected by a system of platforms, landscaped courtyards, bridges and corridors. The sequence of spaces maintains its connection with the exterior and some of them open or close completely thanks to a system of adaptable partitions. PILARES Pedro Vélez seeks to become a recreational cultural oasis that, despite being located on a very small site and in an area of insecurity, its interior experience gives the sensation of openness and diversity of spaces. The materiality and proportion of the building spaces produce a formative and pleasant atmosphere that reactivates and strengthens the social fabric of the neighborhood.
