Scale Factor: Humanizing a University Campus in Sprawling Monterrey
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SCALE FACTOR HUMANIZING A UNIVERSITY CAMPUS IN SPRAWLING MONTERREY. BY JONATHAN LERNER SWA GROUP/JONNU SINGLETON GROUP/JONNU SWA 106 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE APR 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE APR 2018 / 107 DOWNTOWN MONTERREY LEGEND Master plan scope Gate of Creation project site SPORTS COMPLEX HIGH SCHOOL FUTURE STUDENT STUDENT HOUSING CENTER N ABOVE In this aerial view from the west, the area surrounding the Centro Roberto Garza Sada is in red. LEFT Native grasses and informal groves of trees are a central motif of the planting approach. IEGO GONZALEZ was driving UDEM demarks San Pedro’s nar- The campus’s problems reiterate tom; no matter where you through San Pedro Garza Gar- row western border, at a point where Monterrey’s sprawling urban form stand, there’s a view. Just a cía, the poshest municipality in lateral ridges off the soaring Sierra and reliance on cars. Nearly half of mile and a half to the south, metropolitan Monterrey, one Madre mountains pinch close to the its 94 acres is surface parking. That the escarpment of the Sierra of the richest cities in Mexico. Santa Catarina River. West of the consumes centrally located potential Madre shoots up 1,000 me- D“When I was a kid, in the 1970s,” he campus, where the valley opens out a building sites and logical axes of cir- ters over the bottom of the said, gesturing broadly through the bit, a new suburb is being developed; culation. SWA’s landscape plan elabo- valley. Two and a half miles windshield, “all of this was agricul- land prices there have quadrupled in rates upon an earlier master plan north, across the river, rises tural. I came here hunting rabbits.” the past decade. When the university by the architecture and engineering the even higher wall of the San Pedro is built out now. Its domi- campus was first established in 1981, firm Page (formerly Page Souther- Cerro de las Mitras. Formed nant typology is the single-family “it was in the country,” noted Gonza- land Page). Most of the parking will by tectonic uplift, not vol- house, and its circulation patterns ex- lez’s passenger, René Bihan, FASLA. be relocated to the perimeter; much canism, these vertiginously ist to serve cars, so it’s not unlike any “Now they are landlocked. They have of it will go underground. That will steep exposed limestone late 20th-century North American no choice but to be smart about how free up space for infill construction The plan will rely on native spe- with the ‘Home Depot landscape,’ fins have an almost kinetic quality, suburb, except that it has an orthogo- they infill.” One of UDEM’s smart and connective landscape interven- cies, in relaxed sweeps of grasses which is kind of this curator of the as if they are just breaking through nal grid instead of a dendritic street choices was to hire the firm of which tion. SWA’s goal, Bihan said, is place- and groves of trees, for example, to British landscape across the entire the earth’s crust right now. plan. Also, almost every property is San Francisco-based Bihan is a prin- making that establishes “scale and replace what’s there—“lawns, and globe—boxwood, roses, privet.”) And ABOVE enclosed within a high security wall. cipal, SWA, to create a landscape mas- engagement” and uses “regional ex- gardening with little shrubs and the SWA plan will acknowledge the The first expression of the SWA SWA’s first phase has softened the Gonzalez’s destination was the cam- ter plan for the campus. Gonzalez, pression.” Those qualities should well flowers,” as Gonzalez characterized magnificent setting. The valley floor plan has been put in place. It’s the campus and made it pus of the University of Monterrey whose Monterrey firm is Prohabitat, distinguish the experience of UDEM it. (Bihan said drily, “It’s interesting, is canted. The campus slopes an av- landscape surrounding the Cen- kinder to pedestrians. (UDEM). is his local collaborator. from that of the rest of the city. BOTTOM OPPOSITE AND TOP SINGLETON, GROUP/JONNU SWA TOP GROUP, SWA for a city like this, that they identify erage of 10 percent from top to bot- tro Roberto Garza Sada (CRGS), 108 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE APR 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE APR 2018 / 109 a monumental 2013 building de- projects and sculptures. The arch signed by Tadao Ando that houses frames dramatic vistas, but it also the university’s design faculties. The delimits them. It shades you from building is a long concrete slab, slit Monterrey’s intense sunlight. And with narrow ribbon windows and the softness and seeming random- cut out underneath to form a low ness of the planting, a foretaste of arch whose undersides are tightly what is envisioned as a predomi- pleated and oppositionally angled. nant treatment for the campus, is It has a massive, sharp-edged qual- a humanizing response to both the ity similar to that of the mountains. building and the surrounding topog- (The CRGS is also called the “Gate of raphy, which together verge on the ABOVE Creation,” which sounds grandiose, overwhelming. Tucked between walls, this staircase alongside but once you observe the studios up- the Centro Roberto stairs where young people are busy The next effort toward implement- pus. Located where a boulevard the new building—actually, a cluster a challenge, because access to the “The tricky thing is where you draw Garza Sada offers learning things like graphic, inte- ing the campus landscape master forms the campus boundary, it of pavilions looking more like a bit campus, as to many places in Mon- the security line,” Bihan said. Plus, of intimacy amid the rior, textile, and industrial design, plan is immediately adjacent: a plaza incorporates a drop-off zone and of a village than a single building— terrey, is controlled. (Security is an course, the aesthetics of that barrier. dramatic topography. it seems less so.) Surrounding the between the CRGS and a new stu- the principal pedestrian entry. (The will include retail spaces such as issue in the region because of drug SWA came up with a visually porous building and flowing beneath the dent center currently under con- student center is being built over a restaurants, a bookstore, and a bar- trafficking but also, and especially in fence design, the elements of which OPPOSITE The valley is framed arch are soft swaths of vegetation struction. This project embodies parking deck sunk into the slope; ber shop. These will be accessible this affluent part of the city, because actually but subtly form the letters of by soaring, finlike and a rather intimate plaza where many of the complexities inherent vehicles will enter it on the other, to both the general public and the of opportunistic kidnappings for the the acronym UDEM. Finished in a ridges. students display their architecture in transforming the UDEM cam- downhill side.) At the plaza level, OPPOSITE AND LEFT SINGLETON, GROUP/JONNU SWA university community. And that’s purpose of extorting ransom.) shiny goldenrod hue, it’s distinctive, 110 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE APR 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE APR 2018 / 111 5 CIRCULATION DIAGRAM MASTER PLAN SKETCH LEGEND MASTER PLAN SCOPE GATE OF CREATION 4 PROJECT SITE 2 LEGEND Security checkpoint 1 Vehicular access Primary pedestrian Drop-off zone VIP routing N N 6 3 PLAN 1 CENTRO ROBERTO GARZA SADA and has the virtue of not pretending installed at one of the you’re mitigating the topogra- PROJECT AREA it isn’t there. “In the United States existing campus en- phy,” Bihan explained. “It’s also when you design something like that, tries. “It looks like they to give a big landscape presence.” 2 ENTRY PLAZA specialty construction, a contractor haven’t given up.” It’s complemented by a fountain 3 INTEGRATION ZONE does shop drawings, you review those 18 meters in diameter, flush with drawings, there are several levels of The sloping terrain is another chal- the ground plane, with a thin water 7 4 FUTURE EVENT LAWN refinement. Here they just build it. lenge for the plaza, as for the entire skin. The plaza “is bookended by two The first version of that fencing was campus. In this spot, “the topogra- beautiful buildings, and then there’s 5 FUTURE SPORTS FIELDS ABOVE a disaster, too heavy, and not sized phy is moving in two directions.” this landscape move that works as an Early concept drawings 6 STUDENT HOUSING N of circulation (left) properly for the gates,” he said. But on The plaza’s signal gesture is an oval amphitheater if they want to stage and the campus this site visit, he noted with satisfac- berm, 84 by 57 meters in plan, rising the plaza, with the mountains as a 7 HIGH SCHOOL master plan (right). tion that a version had been recently to six meters at its peak. “The idea is backdrop.” Depending on an event’s GROUP SWA GROUP SWA 112 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE APR 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE APR 2018 / 113 ENTRY PLAZA CIRCULATION ENTRY PLAZA RENDERING LEGEND Vehicular circulation Public circulation Secure circulation Secure perimeter Pedestrian entry N Vehicular entry THE PLAZA’S SIGNATURE GESTURE IS AN OVAL BERM, TO MITIGATE THE COMPLEX TOPOGRAPHY AND “GIVE A BIG LANDSCAPE PRESENCE.” configuration, with the fountain Bilbao, the architect of the new stu- was not primarily focused on the drained, the plaza could accommo- dent center, had done the home of landscape architecture. “She’s a good date 5,000. “And it also works on a another. “That creates a personal architect. There’s a storyline there. But more garden scale, as it faces into the bond, over the years,” Bihan said.