Xochimilco, a special part of Mexico, is a magical place. One never knows who or what may drift by over the waters of the city -- wedding parties, teenage lovers kissing passionately on the floor of a gondola, old lovers re-creating the scene of a first date, drunken revelers, picnickers, tour groups, Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, photographers, flower sellers, merchants, musicians, singers, animal handlers, romantics, cynics and perhaps, even the ghosts of Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera.

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Xochimilco is a place outside Mexico City, built long before Columbus ever came to "the New World" and changed it forever. Long ago, the indigenous people of the area built floating gardens out of rafts piled with mud and branches that took root in the bottom of a large lake. These floating gardens or little islands came to be known as chinampas. They grew flowers and crops on them and shipped them via canals to the rest of the city. Over centuries of depletion and dilapidation, most of these canals and chinampas have disappeared becoming victims of urbanization post twentieth century.

 

 But some remain, and both tourists and locals from Mexico City visit them, cruising them on beautiful, colorful, gondola-like boats called trajineras that are given women's names and painted with flowers. The trajineras are steered by men with long poles who push them up and down the canals as riders drink beers and soft drinks and greet the other boats traveling by. Mariachi and maramba bands hop from boat to boat to perform a few songs for riders; small children and old men and women drift along on small rafts selling flowers, tacos, tortillas and sweets and offering to take photographs of riders with ponchos, sombreros, and flowers.

 

These images created the original Aztec Xochimilco, the place where flowers grow. Only a trace of which remains today.

 

 Today, the city of Xochimilco, now a borough of the District Federal is an agglomeration of lower middle class neighborhoods, densely packed green housing, a fine network of canals, and agricultural lands in transition towards urbanization. As a cultural and historical symbol of Mexico, the area formerly covered with over 400 square kilometres of lacustrine, is now drained out of almost all its water reserves. The little that remains is now protected and preserved as World Heritage Site by the UNESCO. However, by virtue of its position as a physical entrance into the main city and its environment of beautiful canals lined by Juniper trees and vast flowering agriculture lands, Xochimilco has been facing mass immigration from other parts of the city in the last 25 years, beyond its sustaining capacity.

 

 The canals once used for transportation and economic value creation supporting social and cultural life, have depleted to an extent where they are unable to support native wildlife and species. Air and Water pollution are increasing threats today. Greenhouses have taken over the chinampas. Creating a highly unsustainable environment, the heritage, economic, social and cultural value of Xochimilco is fast declining. In this situation, the city also faces the added threat of losing its title as a World Heritage Site, officially.

 

The urban design studio explores possibilities and re-imaginations  of this threatened world in a fast urbanizing city. From the wider footprints of contemporary evolution, through the immediacy of the protected land and the ideas of archaeology, ecology and urbanization, deeply rooted in Xochimilco, the studio interrogates the potentials of Xochimilco to be able to generate new forms of urbanity. Responding to the development and change that Xochimilco and Mexico City have undergone in recent years, the design projects propose alternate visions to Xochimilco.

 

 This book is a compilation of the semester, structured around four inter-related studies- Research on the existing grounds and conditions of the city, study of relevant precedents, project formulation through the identification of one square kilometer of the city with a distinct issue, and design development.