URBAAN
STUDIO
INTRO
Since the beginning of October 2019, I live in Santa Fe, Mexico City, and during my stay, I noticed a lot of topics of the public space here in this area. Because I had Spanish lessons at the IBERO university for a while, I walked up and down every day through an office area of large national and international companies. While walking, you will come across various problems of accessibility but also in terms of security in this area. As a pedestrian, you feel like a guest because the public space is mainly designed for cars and buses. The private areas, unlike the public areas, are much better designed and maintained. Unfortunately, there is always a fence around it, and it is often not accessible. The fences are essential for the security of the buildings that I will explain further in this blog. Because there is a fence or wall around the buildings, people live in their bubble, which impacts the public space. Everything that happens outside the bubble doesn't count.
In this blog and design research, I would like to highlight some of my observations and make three improvement proposals for the area of Santa Fe as an answer to two main problems. I have chosen a test area where I think there can be improved a lot, and this area will be linked to general conclusions that can also apply to other living or working areas in Santa Fe.
OBSERVATIONS
While driving by car or bus through Santa Fe, you will see impressive buildings with large logos on their modern, mostly glass facades. This area is easily accessible by car and bus, but it is difficult for pedestrians or cyclists to transport. Santa Fe is located in the higher western part of Mexico City. It has a particular history of a sand mining area, landfill, and to what it is now, a new modern business center of Mexico City. The second thing that strikes me is that security is present in high order in this area. All buildings are divided on the ground floor with high fencing, and behind these boarders are beautiful well-kept gardens. In these gardens, you will hardly find people except the hard-working maintenance teams. These workers are busy cutting, mowing, and spraying these gardens so the grass will always be greener than the grass of the neighbors.
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In Mexico, they provide substantial security for any office or residential building because, unfortunately, crime is highly present in this country. This because in Mexico, there is a higher inequality of the rich and poor. Unfortunately, these high fences don't go without consequences for the perception of public space and have a huge impact. Many people in Santa Fe move from parking garage to parking garage with their car. All they walk is in a covered building of a shopping mall, office, or apartment complex bubble. In other words, who can afford it moves from bubble to bubble in Santa Fe. So the wealthy people live in their SANTA FE BUBBLE.
In short, I will describe the history of Santa Fe and how Santa Fe has grown into a modern living and working area. In 1930 they started with mining of sand mainly for concrete and the construction industry of Mexico City. Due to the geological formation of the mountains, the sand lay in an east-west direction. After digging out the sand, broad and deep trenches of more than 20 km long, 4 km wide, and 100 meters deep remained in this direction. That means there is a good connection between east and west, initially due to the connection between Mexico City and Toluca. But not so many connections in the north and south direction because of these deep trenches. If you're from Mexico City and drive east to Toluca, you drive towards the mountains and Santa Fe. That's why Santa Fe has considerable differences in height between the west and east sides of more than 200 meters. It is therefore not surprising that everyone travels by car or bus. It makes walking and cycling in Santa Fe difficult. Perhaps you can overcome the difference in height with an electric bicycle or sports bike, but it will be challenging with a regular bicycle. That's why you won't find public bicycles in this area in contrast to the city center.
In the early 60s, when it became increasingly difficult to extract the ingredient of concrete, they turned the majority of the mines over to the Federal District. They used the trenches as landfills until the 1980s. Before they closed the landfills, they developed a plan to make Sant Fe into a business area.
First, in 1982 the University of IBEROAMERICANA was built. A beautiful campus with a semi-public space. To admire this campus, you must register yourself as a visitor. The entire campus has one fence around the area and has entrances from many directions. You can check-in with a pass if you are a student or if you work at IBERO. Once inside, you can walk freely in the gardens. You will see many students using the outdoor areas intensively, in contrast to the private areas of offices or residential buildings.
In the 1990s, they developed a plan to build on top of the landfill. To do so, they deposit millions of kilos of sand over the landfill to build the Centro Santa Fe shopping mall (the largest in Latin America) with the garbage underneath. After the construction of the shopping center, the development of Santa Fe went fast. There are many international companies now in Santa Fe, and for the people who want to live closer to their jobs, they build residential buildings in Santa Fe.
Also, they build in 2017 a new multifunctional Park La Mexicana, which is designed by the Landscape Architects Mario Schjetnan and architect Víctor Márquez. A beautiful modern park with many functions and activities for the people of Santa Fe and beyond.
Besides the largest shopping mall in Latin America, five other shopping malls that increase the Santa Fe bubble's feeling. Because wherever you live in Santa Fe, you have everything nearby, and so you work, live, and shop comfortably in your bubbles. It is not pleasant to drive far in Santa Fe because on a regular (not COVID-19 time) weekday, it can be hectic on the roads, and you should not be surprised if you are stuck in traffic for more then 20 minutes to get to your destination. A high above-ground train connection is still under construction but is to connect the Capital with Santa Fe and eventually Toluca. This train connection will not solve the in-between traffic jams in Santa Fe. The train planned to run in 2022, but it looks like it will start running many years later, following in the change of political powers.
PROBLEMS and TEST LOCATION
With these observations, I mainly see two problems why the public space of Santa Fe is getting squeezed.
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Because of the considerable height differences in the region, everyone transports by motorized vehicles means that cars and buses are taking over Santa Fe and taking all the space in against the pedestrians or bicycles. Because of this, people move from one bubble to another motorized bubble.
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All fences for the buildings' security divide the spaces and are, therefore, not accessible for pedestrians to move freely. Footpaths are squeezed between the roads and partition of buildings. As a pedestrian, you walk between the bubbles in a poorly maintained area.
Due to the traffic, the roads are extra-wide, and pedestrians are squeezed between the fence and the road. A solution is not as simple as building cycle paths instead of roadways due to the high altitude differences, or removing fences because you need them for security. That is why I want to explain design principles from a design study that embraces the Santa Fe bubble experience. From my point of view, it is not about plopping the bubbles but about creating better and bigger bubbles with better in-between connections. The aim is to make better connections at the distances that can be done on foot. To explain this further, I chose a test area to show how to do this.
The test area for this design research is from the University of IBERO to my house, where I can walk. This area includes the headquarters of:
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Grupo Bimbo (large Mexican bread and food company)
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FedEx Mexico (multinational delivery service company)
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Citibanamex (Mexico's second-largest bank)
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IBM (multinational technology company)
As you can see, these are big multinationals. However, this area has some problems. The public space has many square meters of the pavement due to too wide roads that not used efficiently. The road is unclear, and every car crisscrosses through each other. As a pedestrian, you feel not safe on the streets if you want to buy some food at one of the food stalls during your lunch break. There are not enough parking lots in this area, so shuttle buses are being deployed for employees who can't find a parking spot. They can park somewhere else and take a bus to get to their jobs. It might be because many office buildings are relatively small in this area compared to the lots of, for example, IBERO and Citibanamex. It could be one of the reasons for the lag of parking space.
TEST LOCATION
VOGELVLUCHT
KANTOREN GEBIED SANTA FE
VOGELVLUCHT
DESIGN RESEARCH
If you see the map below, you see the existing situation and shows that the lots of the offices are smaller than those of the surrounding area. There are also fences around each lot. The lots are divided among themselves. The long wide road of 10 meters wide crosses the area and splits the area in two. Parking is not allowed in this two-way street. Furthermore, each building has its entrance for the parking garage, which requires a lot more space between the southern buildings.
EXISTING SITUATION
BESTAANDE SITUATIE SANTA FE
MODEL 1
In the following model, I want to show that by removing the fence between the buildings, the buildings become freer, and there is more useful space for green and collective spaces. By narrowing the 10-meter wide road to 6 meters, you create much more overview in traffic and creating better connections. I also swing the road to get out the cars' speed and put much more green in between. By doing this, it will become less hot and more comfortable on the street.
The spaces that we take from the street can be used for green and separated footpaths. By creating better footpaths, it will be more pleasant to walk in your lunch break. This way, it will become a better and healthier office area. People can more relax, and that provides a better workflow. By this solution, we create more giant bubbles instead of the relatively small office lots.
MODEL 2
In the second model, I adopt the IBERO campus situation and the first model's interventions. By putting a fence around the entire area, there will be two entrances on the south-east and north-west sides. The area becomes one giant campus bubble for all the companies. In this way, we create much more space, and it is much easier to walk through the whole area. It will increase the cohesion and exchange between companies and will give the entire area one identity comparable to the office gardens described earlier. This solution is not only suitable for offices but could be used for residential areas too. It allows areas to be maintained collectively by companies or residential buildings.
CONCLUSION
From this design research, I came to the following three conclusions that can contribute to improving and enlarging Santa Fe bubbles.
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Removing the partitions in between offices enlarge the common space and create more giant bubbles. It increases the quality of use and perception of areas.
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Decrease the wide roads, increase the safety and clarity in the area for pedestrians. Also, by narrowing the roads, there will be more green space, which makes the streets cooler (also in temperature).
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A campus model with a single fence around one area with several offices or apartment buildings creates more space and freedom. That increases the cohesion among the people in the area. Another advantage is that the fenced area will get the offices' identity and can take over together the maintenance of the streets and footpaths.
With this blog, I hope to inspire and think differently about the public space and short connections in Santa Fe. These conclusions can be used to improve existing areas or take into account the development of new areas. The corona pandemic has again shown us the importance of spacious public areas and that we must give each other space for healthy green areas.
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Finally, I would like to point out that this design research has been developed independently. All information used in this study comes from openstreetmap.org, Wikipedia and Google Earth. Did this blog inspire you, and would you like to work with me for urban solutions? click HERE for contact me.
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Thibo Felipe Duifhuizen
Urban and landscape designer