A Former Factory Takes On New Life As A Community Hub In Oaxaca

Architects João Boto Cæiro, director and lead architect of RootStudio in Oaxaca City, Mexico, and Lisbon, Portugal, and Alin Wallach, founding partner of Labora in Mexico City, approach their discipline as a social practice unique to each territory—from disaster relief and adobe-home building in Mixteca to repurposing a Zacatecas sewage canal into a play-ground to comprehensive urban regeneration. Recently, their two firms transformed an old plywood factory complex in Oaxaca that sat abandoned for 40 years, severed off by the polluted Atoyac River, into a 40-acre park. Less than a mile from the Zócalo, the city’s central square, Parque Primavera Oaxaqueña Cho Ndobá boasts multiple sports and recreation facilities, Alejandro Santiago’s massive installation 2,501 Migrants, and a museum of milpa agriculture.

For a year, the teams salvaged existing structures to avoid demolition wherever possible. The challenge was to “create a revitalized image that would feel safe to visitors,” Wallach says, “while simultaneously preserving the essence of the former factory, which was always an icon.” At the northern end of the park, the addition of three round iron structures incorporating recovered metal frameworks and supporting swings kicked off what are now 2 acres of playgrounds. Nearby, the skate park suitable for both professional championships and recreational use was designed with athletes. “Every element was conceived not just as a piece of sports equipment,” Wallach continues, “but as a sculptural form.”

“It continues to grow, literally,” Boto Cæiro adds. “As a ‘sponge park,’ extraction and absorption wells capture or drain water from the riverbed, supplying or helping prevent flooding in the neighboring district.” It has also triggered a cleanup effort of the Atoyac—evidence that a city’s culture, community, and sustainability can all be bolstered in a single project.