CDMX Resilient Code: Water Commons in Mexico City

Authors

  • Lorena Bello Gómez Massachusetts Institute of Technology

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_zarch/zarch.2020154492

Keywords:

Water Imaginary, Equitable Resilience, Resilient Code, Soft-Bottom Up Infrastructure, Water Commons, Hydro-Social Risk Reduction

Abstract

Using Mexico City (CDMX) as a paradigmatic example of seriously unbalanced water regimes, our project Resilient Code helps strengthen and communicate CDMX’s government efforts toward risk reduction and water resilience in marginal communities. Our project does so by bridging otherwise separate agents in the government towards a common goal: equitable resilience. Resilient Code provides design solutions that link the social infrastructure of PILARES (a network of 300 vocational schools distributed throughout the city) to CDMX’s environmental and risk reduction initiatives, including their Risk Atlas. This strategic program of design-based solutions began with “water resilience” as a Pilot to repurpose public space throughout underserviced barrios as a network of “water-commons”. Resilient Code helps partners in CDMX implement projects to reduce environmental risks and complement socio-economic programs, fostering growth of the “water-commons”. Resilient Code is socialized through a participatory game-based workshop, and through an online Atlas of Risk Reduction.

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Author Biography

Lorena Bello Gómez, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Lorena Bello Gómez is Lecturer in architecture and urbanism at MIT’s Department of Architecture since January 2013. This academic year (2020-2021) Lorena is Visiting Professor in architecture and urbanism at Porto University´s FAUP. Lorena’s research focuses on territorial implications of infrastructure as catalysts for urban design. She examined this topic in her dissertation “Hybrid Networks”, first under the guidance of the late Manuel de Sola-Morales and finished under Joan Busquets. Since then, she has collaborated with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in Spain (2016), the Aga Khan Foundation in India (2017-2018), Fundación Social in Colombia (2017-), TUMO Foundation in Armenia (2018) and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies in Mexico (2018-). Lorena has engaged in workshops with Universities and/or governments in Colombia, Japan, Spain, Mexico, China, and Portugal. Prior to 2008, Lorena worked in Barcelona as project director at Aldayjover where she led projects at different scales including those within the Water Park 2008 international exhibit in Zaragoza. She was also research assistant at the Joan Miró Foundation and the Building Tech Institute of Catalonia (ITEC). Lorena holds a B.Arch in Architecture with honors from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, UPC (B.Arch´05), a Masters of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, GSD (MAUD´11), and a European PhD in Urbanism from UPC (PhD´15).

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Published

2021-01-27

How to Cite

Bello Gómez, L. (2021). CDMX Resilient Code: Water Commons in Mexico City. ZARCH. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Architecture and Urbanism, (15), 138–153. https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_zarch/zarch.2020154492

Issue

No. 15 (2020): Urban Processes, Water Dynamics & Climate Change

Section

Topic papers