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11
Oct 2017

News – GSD Alumni Awarded Regional LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 Latin America

GSD alumna wins award for her work on publicly accessible water infrastructure in Mexico City. Loreta Castro (MAUD 10’) took the Gold Award for the 2017 Latin America LafargeHolcim competition on sustainable construction. Loreta Castro and co-author Manuel Perló won the 2017 Gold Award for their project, “Parque Hídrico Quebradora.” Another GSD alumna, Elena Tudela (MAUD 12’), is also on the team. The proposal addresses water infrastructure in Iztapalapa, a water-scarce borough within the federal district of Mexico City. Loreta and her team designed a water retention and treatment complex that intermingles public buildings and green spaces with flood basins. […]
17
Aug 2017

Paper—Staying a Step Ahead: Institutional Flexibility in the Rehabilitation of Social Housing in Oaxaca

  The Mexican National Workers’ Housing Fund Institute, or Infonavit, is the most important actor in the nation’s housing market. As of 2015, it was the leader in mortgage origination, accounting for roughly 74 percent of all housing loans. The institute was founded in 1972 with the mission of fulfilling the right to housing provided to workers as established in the Mexican Constitution, primarily through the provision of credit for the purchase of formal housing. Today, roughly one out of every four Mexicans lives in a home financed or built by Infonavit. Success for the institution has traditionally been measured regarding […]
25
Mar 2017

Event—CGBC Lecture Series: Benjamín Romano on “Integrating Flow in High Rise Structures”

Mexican Cities Initiative and the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities are proud to present the following lecture. Location: Gund Hall, Room 111 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 Questions? Please contact Jeff Fitton ([email protected]). Audience: This event is open to the public. Benjamín Romano is a Mexico City-based architect and the founder of the firm, LBR&A Arquitectos. He was the lead architect of Torre Reforma—the second-tallest building in Mexico—a 57-story exposed concrete high-rise that overlooks the expansive Chapultepec Park. LBR&A Arquitectos has been involved in office, residential, cultural and industrial projects across Mexico City and beyond. The firm is known for its attention to contemporary design, […]

21
Mar 2017

Event—Mexico City at a Crossroads: Urban Challenges of the 21st Century – Keynote Address*

Mexican Cities Initiative and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies are proud to present the following keynote address and panel discussions. Date:  Friday, March 31, 2017, 6:30pm to 9:00pm Location:  Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, Harvard Graduate School of Design, 48 Quincy Street Keynote Address: Urban Challenges in an Era of Climate Change Register here. Registration is not required to attend, but it is encouraged. *This presentation will be conducted in Spanish with simultaneous translation. Speaker: Miguel Angel Mancera, Mayor of Mexico City Introduction: Jorge Domínguez, Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico, Department of Government; Chair, Harvard Academy for International and Area […]
20
Mar 2017

Neutrality is Complicity

By Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman Last Spring, an anonymous group of architects, designers, and artists announced an international competition to design a new border wall between the United States and Mexico. The proposal was the brainchild of the Third Mind Foundation, a consortium dedicated to experimental forms of interdisciplinary collaboration; and the competition was inspired by Donald Trump’s incendiary campaign promise of a continental border wall.  The Third Mind began their challenge with an emphatic statement “Let us be clear, we take no position on this issue, we remain politically neutral.” They claimed, in fact, to be “moving beyond politics” […]
23
Jan 2017

Event—Mexican Cities Initiative: 2016 Fellowship Presentation

2016 Summer Research Fellowship Program Presentation Date: Monday, January 30th from 6 PM—9 PM. Reception to follow presentations Place: Room 112 in Gund Hall, Harvard Graduate School of Design The Mexican Cities Initiative Summer Research Fellowship has been established to fund innovative research on Mexico’s cities, open to all current GSD students and their collaborators. We solicit projects that offer new ways of envisioning Mexican cities and the role of humanist, design-based research in urban transformation, to research and communicate risk and resilience through the lens of everyday urbanism. The 2016 Summer Research Fellows will present their findings from the field […]
11
Jan 2017

The Town Underneath the City: La Chinesca

In the historic core of Mexicali, and predominantly in the Chinese neighborhood of La Chinesca, there is a vast network of interconnected basements whose form and spatial characteristics have not been well documented. By: Jessica Sevilla It was only a couple of years ago that the general public had access for the first time to some of these underground spaces, which until then remained an urban legend. They date back to the first decades of the 20th century when the majority of Mexicali’s population was of Chinese descent— a statistic that remained true until the end of the 1920’s. The […]
8
Dec 2016

Event—Rethinking Social Housing in Mexico

Final Presentation of a Three-Year Research Project Funded by INFONAVIT Date: Thursday, December 15th from 10:00 AM—12:00 PM Place: Room 112 in Gund Hall, Harvard Graduate School of Design Diane Davis (Principal Investigator of Rethinking Social Housing in Mexico—RESHIM) will present the results of the Governance Report and Best Practices focusing primarily on the Urban Value Creation Platform for sustainable urban development and social housing renovation in Mexican cities. Carlos Zedillo (Head of the Research Center for Sustainable Development of the Mexican National Workers’ Housing Fund Institute—INFONAVIT) will join GSD faculty and students in a discussion of strategies for better […]
21
Nov 2016

Latin GSD Lecture Series: What’s Next? Lessons from Latinamerica after the Venice Biennale

The goal of the Latin GSD student organization is to spread the discussion of topics that are currently relevant to design, landscape, urban design and planning disciplines in Latin American Countries. And of course, to promote the integration between people interested in Latin America. Building on this premise, this event is the second of a series of lectures where we want to discuss and ask the curators of the Latin-American pavilions what are the lessons learned after this unique event and how this pavilions respond to Alejandro Aravena’s call for innovation in times of scarcity. With this in mind, we […]
14
Nov 2016

Event—Staying a Step Ahead: Institutional Flexibility in the Rehabilitation of Social Housing in Oaxaca

Paulina Campos (CEO, Fundación Hogares), Surella Segú (Former Head of Office for Urban Development at the Mexican National Workers’ Housing Fund Institute—Infonavit), and Emiliano García (Principal Designer, Taller de Operaciones Ambientales) joined Diane Davis (Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism & Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design), and David Parente (Concurrent Master in Urban Planning + Landscape Architecture Candidate) in a discussion of planning and design strategies deployed to address the growing problems of housing abandonment in Mexico. The panel took place on November 9th at the Harvard Graduate School of Design as a joint […]