El Higuerón park was a commission arising from the Infonavit housing institute's initiative in Jojutla, to architecture firms AGENdA Agencia de Arquitectura | Dellekamp / Schleich.

After the earthquake, on Mexico on September 19th, 2017, severe damage was caused too much of the existing building, which contained various community spaces such as the collectively-run tortillería and teaching rooms for training residents.

The main structural damages revealed the important role of a community center for somewhere like Jojutla following a natural disaster of such magnitude.
AGENdA Agencia de Arquitectura | Dellekamp / Schleich designed the project paying special attention to the earthquake wounds in the area that revealed the importance of a community center in the civil / civic life of a local community:
 
"to heal the site / connect the project to its context, opening up room for a central plaza / clarifying a program and adapting it to the daily life of a community / protecting users from adverse weather / taking a joined-up approach among participants / breathing," said the architects.
 

Project description by AGENdA | Dellekamp / Schleich

A 7.1-degree earthquake on the Richter scale shook Mexico on September 19th, 2017, leaving the entire country in a state of emergency with more than 369 victims and 150,000 homes destroyed in five states (Oaxaca, Morelos, State of Mexico and Guerrero).

Jojutla (Morelos) was one of the many municipalities of the republic that became a field of ruins after the earthquake that shook Mexico on September 19, 2017. In a fraction of a second, most of its infrastructure was completely or partially destroyed.

After an initiative initiated by Infonavit where a group of national architects got involved, a master plan for restructuring the main public buildings of the municipality was launched. Dellekamp / Schleich, and the Agenda office (Colombia) were called to collaborate on two projects: Two symbolic representations of faith. Two temples, one religious, another secular. A church (El Santuario Señor de Tula) and a community centre (the Higuerón Park).

Jojutla, municipality of the state of Morelos was one of the sites most affected by the earthquake that shook Mexico on September 19, 2017, with a record of more than 1000 damaged homes and most of its public infrastructure collapsed.

In Parque el Higuerón, much of the original buildings that housed several community spaces, such as a communal tortillería and classrooms for training the residents, collapsed. The severity of the damage suffered by the structure and the inability to use these spaces revealed the importance of this centre for the residents of the community.

The project seeks to heal a wounded site and act as a symbol of community and solidarity for a society under reconstruction. The volume, positioned as a bracket on the internal margins of the site, functions as a program container and delimiter of the central square.

The construction system, formed by a grid of rigid concrete frames allows a free composition of open and closed spaces, configuring the areas for workshops, the library and municipality offices. The vacuum generated by the square protects users from climatic conditions and directly connects the proposal with its context.

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Architects
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AGENdA Agencia de Arquitectura | Dellekamp/Schleich
Architects.- Camilo Restrepo Ochoa, Derek Dellakamp, Jachen Schleich. Project leader.- Francisco Franco.
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Design team
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Gustavo Hernández, José Manuel Estrada, Mariana Mejía, Juan Camilo Ramírez, Camilo Toro, Helen Winter.
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Collaborators
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Renderings.- Sana Frini, Samuele Xompero. Lighting design.- Lightchitects (https://www.lightchitects.com/). Landscape Design.- Entorno Taller de Paisaje. Structural Design.- Structural Engineering Oscar Trejo. MEP.- Architect Ubaldo Velazquez.
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Area
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Total area.- 1,500 m². Built area.- 760 m².
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Photography
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AGENdA is an architecture firm founded by Camilo Restrepo (b. Medellín, Colombia, 1974). AGENdA is an optimistic architecture agency committed to create cultural and social value through site specific urban and rural projects and interventions. We are identity providers giving a new sense to space and locality by attending deep rooted cultural values and respecting existing contexts, while maintaining and making use of architecture disciplinary values and challenges such as theory, history and critical positioning.

We intersect  a space between a passionate commitment to teaching and research and the pragmatic and demanding reality of everyday life with clever and resourceful outcomes and results.

We strongly believe in the power of design and architecture thinking understood and practiced as "joining the dots" through specific projects, giving added value and creating comfort no matter the scale, the budget or the conditions.

We are engaged in multi scale projects, ranging from industrial design objects to urban design and rural analysis and site specific projects.
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Dellekamp + Schleich is an architectural firm based in Mexico City, founded in 1999 as Dellekamp Arquitectos by Derek Dellekamp, an architect from the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico (1992-1997). The studio was renamed Dellekamp + Schleich with the addition of the architect Jachen Duri Schleich as co-director. The studio is dedicated to the design and supervision of architectural projects of any scale or program through a rigorous research methodology. They study each case to find precise solutions to the different realities in this way we maximize the intentions of budget, image, use, context, and emotion of each project.

Dellekamp + Schleich is dedicated to the development and supervision of architectural projects regardless of scale or program type with a rigorous research methodology. They aim to find unique solutions to the specific conditions of each project in order to maximize its intended budget, image, use, context, and spirit. The coordination and collaboration with various disciplines such as engineering, graphic design, industrial design, environmental engineering, and landscape architecture make up a significant part of their activities, adding value to their team of specialists focused on the accomplishment of integral solutions. Simultaneously, Dellekamp Arquitectos is involved in ongoing architectural research that fosters a laboratory of ideas that can feed our activities. This way, they are constantly a part of the academic and teaching realms, as well as research studies, lectures, publications, biennales, and exhibitions.

Since 2005, Derek Dellekamp has been a professor at the faculty of Architecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana and the Universidad Anáhuac. He is also an Invited Professor at Rice School of Architecture in Houston, USA at the University of Texas. In 2014 he was invited as a visiting critic to the workshop at the Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

Void Temple of Pilgrim Route was selected from over 200 participants from around the world, as Highly Commended in the AR Awards for Emerging Architecture 2014 held in London in late 2013. 1st prize in XIX CEMEX BUILDING AWARD in Urbanism category 2010; Ruta del Peregrino has been selected to be part of the Collection of Architecture of the Centre Pompidou in Paris 2010; Winner of CAM-SAM Award Bicentenario al Merito Profesional y Jovenes Arquitectos in Architecture category 2010; Silver Medal for Tlacolula at XI Mexican Biennale in Social Housing category 2010; First place in Sully competition, a proposal curated by Christ & Gantenbein and done in conjunction with a team of international architects in 2010; Earned the scholarship FONCA for his research project of social housing in Mexico 2010; World Architecture Community Awards 3rd cycle, CB30 apartment building 2009; The International Architecture Awards 2008, CB29| CB30 apartment building 2008; Wallpaper Architects Directory 2007; 101 of the world’s most exciting new architects 2007; 1st place in the Chapultepec Educational | Environmental Park, Chapultepec, Mexico City, Mexico, Derek Dellekamp and TOA taller 2004; Honorary Distinction in the VIII Architecture Biennal Mexico, AR58 apartment building 2004; Honorary Distinction in Jose Vasconcelos National Library Competition in collaboration with Dominique Perrault, Michel Rojkind and Miquel Adria 2003.

Jachen Duri Schleich graduated in architecture from ETH Zurich, 2006. He has Master in Science from ETH, 2006.
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Published on: January 10, 2020
Cite: "Healing after the earthquake. El Higuerón Park Community Center by AGENdA y Dellekamp/Schleich " METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/healing-after-earthquake-el-higueron-park-community-center-agenda-y-dellekampschleich> ISSN 1139-6415
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