MEXICO CITY ARTIST APARTMENTS Owner: Location: Mexico City, Mexico Completion Year: 2004

UNBUILT
Through study models, erosion was explored as a driving force to the potential for the visual formation of verticality. Erosion was accomplished by taking a pure geometric form and fragmenting it into smaller similar units in which these smaller units were removed randomly by the designer and site requirements. The presence of vertical lines through the structure and a narrowing top make reference to the sky and help create a vertical of the object. With these studies, an organization of spaces was also established from the vertical abstract not only in the actual form of the object but also the voids of space inadvertently created on the interior of each study model. These vertical voids drove the possibilities of the experience and program both internally as well as externally. The project only touches the ground plain in areas of vertical circulation (building access) and creates a separate community above the existing city fabric below. This minimal development of the ground plain also allowed for a continuation of an existing park system. The entire structural system works together not as a typical column / lintel but rather as a grid creating a series of trusses allowing for greater spans and cantilevering to occur throughout the matrix. Bamboo scaffolding was referred to help formulate the way the structure was articulated. Structure appears and disappears throughout the project creating open spaces, theaters, gardens and other outdoor recreation, but also allows the artists to explore and inhabit unoccupied spaces with their projects.