SUSTAINABILITY STATIONS
The Sustainability Station is a project focused on solving Mexico City’s problem of lack of water and floods. Both situations are related to the water extraction from the soil water table, which represents 71% of the city’s water supply. The extraction of the water causes many land subsidences throughout the city. At the same time, the subsidences produce the city’s flooding, so the sewerage network cannot maintain the necessary slope for the eviction of the waste water. The main purpose of the project is the water harvesting in order to avoid water table extraction from the city’s water supply.
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The raining season varies throughout the year and for this reason, so the project combines recycling functions that let the facilities operate along the year. The incorporation of a recycling program allows the labors to be focused on the waste collection in the non-raining periods. Recycling was selected because it also benefits the city since in the city only 17% of waste is recycled. The facility will collect materials used for packing such as paper, cardboard, glass, plastic, and aluminum. This recyclable waste material will be collected, cleaned, compacted and prepared to be transferred to proper recycle facilities for proper reuse. The paper will be the only waste material which will be recycled in the Station because it’s technological process for recycle is easy, and compared with the others doesn’t represent a risk of polluting the water harvested.
Mexico’s City Water Problem
Cinema
The concept of the project came up from an old prehispanic legend about one of the Mexicas’ Gods named Tlaloc, when Mexico City was known as Tenochtitlan and the inhabitants as Mexicas. The Mexicas believed that Tlaloc controlled the rain through 4 basins he had where each one contained a different kind of rain. The first one had cold water, the second one had “bad” water and the third one had water with a plague. The three of them would have killed the crops and only the fourth basin had “good” water that would have helped the crops grow. So, the Mexicas prayed and worshiped Tlaloc in order to receive the water of the fourth basin. Tlaloc made raining with the help of his assistants named Tlaloques. As a result, the Tlaloques took in their own basins the water Tlaloc ordered them to take of his basins. The Tlaloques broke their small basins and made rain where Tlaloc indicated them to break them. The sound of the basins breaking is the sound that we now know as thunders.
The project makes reference to this legend by making the central volume of the project a cylinder which resembles the basin with good water of Tlaloc. Moreover, the design of the open area layout is the Mexicas symbols of water and houses which together are read as the water of the houses.
Cinema
Gym
Mexico city’s has approximately 20.4 million of habitants, making it one of the cities with more population in the world. The number of inhabitants will increase in the next years and with it the lack of water too. The 2.5% of city’s water supply comes from ground sources like lakes that remain in the city. The aqueducts provide 26.5% of the water from other states. The aqueducts system in order to bring the water to the city must travel 127 kilometers and pump the water 1,100 meters. Finally, the 71% of the water is obtained by the water table extraction and because of the clay soil of the city the extraction causes differential subsidences in the entire city.
The subsidences are irreversible and cause many other consequences such as cracks in the streets, damage in buildings’ foundations, and the main consequence is suffered by the sewage network. The sewage network no longer has the slope necessary for the eviction of the wastewater which produces floods in the raining seasons. The lack of slope for evictions causes a major problem because pumping systems are necessary for the waste water expulsion. Both pumping water systems, for bringing water and for eviction, utilize a lot of energy equivalent to the energy used in a reactor of 800 megawatts.
Therefore, pumping is expensive and requires a lot of maintenance, so it does not represent a long-term solution for the future. Water harvesting may be the solution for the lack of water and floods of the city without damaging the environment. The rainwater harvesting will decrease the water table extraction and the environmental and urban consequences.
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The Sustainability Station is a project focused on solving Mexico City’s problem of lack of water and floods. Both situations are related to the water extraction from the soil water table, which represents 71% of the city’s water supply. The extraction of the water causes many land subsidences throughout the city. At the same time, the subsidences produce the city’s flooding, so the sewerage network cannot maintain the necessary slope for the eviction of the waste water. The main purpose of the project is the water harvesting in order to avoid water table extraction from the city’s water supply.
​
The raining season varies throughout the year and for this reason, so the project combines recycling functions that let the facilities operate along the year. The incorporation of a recycling program allows the labors to be focused on the waste collection in the non-raining periods. Recycling was selected because it also benefits the city since in the city only 17% of waste is recycled. The facility will collect materials used for packing such as paper, cardboard, glass, plastic, and aluminum. This recyclable waste material will be collected, cleaned, compacted and prepared to be transferred to proper recycle facilities for proper reuse. The paper will be the only waste material which will be recycled in the Station because it’s technological process for recycle is easy, and compared with the others doesn’t represent a risk of polluting the water harvested.