Mexico’s European conquerors dredged the lake system in the Valley of Mexico, destabilizing the hydrological balance of the basin in which Mexico City was founded. Today, Mexico City’s hydrology is paradoxically defined by water shortages and floods. This proposal to restore the lake basin differs from previous ones in that it recognizes that the lake bed cannot be flooded. Instead it proposes a system of round reservoirs along the perimeter. Their shape maximizes the amount of new waterfront property created for the city, while preventing further encroachment on the land. Each reservoir performs a different function (e.g. energy or food production, wastewater management, desalination, migrant species habitat, public amenities) all of them being interconnected following the principles of industrial ecology at the landscape scale.
Project team: Daniel Daou