In Mexico City, El Terreno is a community garden and educational centre established during the Covid19 outbreak. Allowing for an urban orchard to grow flowers, aromatic plants and vegetables, the project aims to provide children with social stimulation as well as an environmental education that brings them closer to cycles of food production and sustainable living.
Central to the project is a pavilion inserted into the landscape and constructed with recycled materials. Designed by local architecture office VERTEBRAL, the reclaimed materials used come from materials used in their previous construction projects.
To form the pavilion, sections of iron rods were bent and welded into retaining walls filled with stone found when excavating at the site. The roof is made up of wooden trusses that come from old concrete formwork. By employing only four different modules all trusses could be assembled by volunteers from the community.
VERTEBRAL explain it was important to create a pavilion where anything could happen. “Spaces that are strictly defined rapidly become obsolete. By contrast, anonymous and ambiguous spaces are resilient and multi-faceted, allowing their significance and purpose to shift among users,” the architects explain.
