A delicate urban garden. Jardín Ciudadano by Práctica Arquitectura

Description of project by Práctica Arquitectura

The history of the Jardín Ciudadano begins long before the project itself.  In October 2014, the 73rd Legislature of the H. Congress of the State of Nuevo León issued a statement announcing the construction of a parking lot on the property with a public expenditure of 55 million pesos. In response, a group of citizens and civil organizations demonstrated against this decision, provoking a public reaction. In January 2015, they camped out for 13 days with the proposal to turn the lot into a green public space that could improve the quality of life of the people.

The theme of working on a park did not fully encompass the relationship and nature that the site expressed, a park is understood as an open space which is mostly unconfined. The physical situation of the immediate context and the way in which the place is used sparked an interest in exploring the idea of the garden, thinking of green places that do not exist in the collective imagination of Monterrey, but that can nourish our identity and change the way of living in city centers.

This garden can be understanding as a house with a central courtyard, where the center lawn expresses the idea of an open and social space, free of program and flexible to be used in different ways. In their corners, four niches contain the patio, each one with its own character and responding to its surroundings. These four spaces generate an atmosphere of intimacy, a refuge contained by natural limits. The landscape is the material that allows us to understand how to inhabit space.

The character of a garden allows for intimate spaces, profuse vegetation that serves as boundaries and guides, semi-labyrinthine paths, discovering and contemplating the shadows, transitions from large to small spaces, discovering surprises in the routes, finding planes of light and shadow, the ability to tell stories, and the opportunity to stop and linger in quiet places with a lot to say.  Its matter is alive; it grows, reacts, changes its smells, colors and shapes. It becomes a new citizen.

This project is a different approach to downtown living. A common meeting space with the possibility of sharing ideas, getting to know each other, expressing ourselves and improving as citizens, but also with the possibility of experiencing a world of silence and mystery. When history is rejected, the search for memory is rejected and it causes detachment from human qualities. The Jardín Ciudadano is the reflection of the struggle to promote spaces that people can remember, value, and share with new generations, intended not only as places of leisure or recreation, but also as places of contemplation, permanence, and identity.

Recently the project obtained Mention by Bienal Panamericana de Arquitectura de Quito 2018 in the category Diseño Urbano y Arquitectura del Paisaje, a prize that seeks to reward the better quality of the rehabilitation of public spaces in urban areas in the America continent.