TEC MEXICO CITY INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM
IN 2017, MEXICO CITY experienced a devastating 7.1-magnitude earthquake. The disaster hit one of the city’s preeminent universities, Tecnológico de Monterrey, damaging nearly every building on campus and killing five students. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the university saw an opportunity to create a new campus that would be as innovative and engaging as the interdisciplinary pedagogy at the institution.
“Universities in Latin America tend to turn their backs to their neighbors. They’re often fenced or walled off,” says Victor Eskinazi, an associate principal architect at the integrated design firm Sasaki. There’s a feeling “that institutions don’t contribute, and that neighbors only get the worst parts: the traffic, trash, and parties.”
For Sasaki, reimagining Tec Mexico City meant utilizing its 84 acres of landholdings to transform a fragmented part of the city into a unified district with shared amenities that would prioritize stronger community ties. The new plan adopts what Eskinazi refers to as a “multihelix approach” that integrates the university’s core campus with a new innovation district that leverages connections to Mexico City’s existing medical cluster, along with student housing, a stadium, and sports facilities with a magnet high school, community spaces, and a daycare.
When completed, the site will feature a network of open spaces and a shaded pedestrian boulevard acting as a spine for the district. New parks, playgrounds, and other recreational facilities will be accessible to residents in surrounding neighborhoods that have lacked much green space. “As you move through the district, you’re always in a parklike setting,” says Eskinazi. —Rebecca Greenwald