Reforma Pavilion.

At an abandoned construction site along the Paseo de la Reforma, the center of Mexico City’s financial district, we were asked to design a temporary structure to house a three-day conference of site activation and community participation events. 

We decided to reuse an abandoned steel structure on the site and to use it as the skeleton around which the pavilion is built. Taking advantage of a difference of approximately 3 meters (10ft) in level from the street to the site, we provide a gently sloping area for entry and public gatherings that can also be used as an amphitheater space for presentations, talks, and movie screenings open to the night air. 

Since the client also owns several construction materials manufacturers, we designed the additional pavilion spaces with materials from the catalogs of the owner’s companies.  A ribbon of wood posts with wood planking wraps around the existing steel structure, forming a ramp at one extreme and transitioning to an enclosing wall and movie screen at the opposite side of the site.  The lower level becomes a recreation space for informal gatherings and activities, or can be used to cross the site via bicycle or on foot through a series of casual paths.  The upper level, accessed via the new rampway, becomes an area for meetings and presentations to discuss the future of the vacant adjacent sites that the client wishes to develop.  In addition to providing an agreeable meeting space, the pavilion aims to create an open and inviting space to set a precedent for future developments in the area, which is currently undergoing rapid and large-scale development.