Mexico City – 5468796 Architecture and Factor Eficiencia with Studio NYL Structural Engineers presented One Bucket at a Time Pavilion, a collaborative project highlighting the liberal enjoyment of public space in Mexico City’s unique yet contentious urban environment. The installation was part of Mextrópoli 2017, a four-day international festival of architecture that brought together over 50,000 people – from students to artists and tourists to thought-leaders – to generate ideas and a new vision of the city through architecture.

In Mexico City’s metropolitan area, with a population of more than 23 million people, 4.5 million daily commuters navigate complex road networks, frequent traffic jams, public protests and parking shortages. The street—the prime public space—is the setting for all such friction. There, “viene viene”—entrepreneurs who function outside of government oversight—bribe the local police, use common painter’s buckets to claim a piece of the street, and charge hopeful drivers looking for a parking spot with an additional fee in exchange for access to their illegal stall. Each viene viene can control one or several city blocks with their buckets, and will threaten anyone who parks without agreeing to pay them.

One Bucket at a Time was inspired by this hijacking of public (parking) space and uses common painter’s buckets as the building blocks for an interactive pavilion. Connecting the buckets via a grid of ropes, the installation is a malleable ‘surface’ that the public is encouraged to freely explore. The surface functions like a giant carpet, and can be rolled, pulled together or up to a point or along a line taking on different forms. People can sit, run, play, stand, lounge, and participate in the act of taking over the public realm. In situ for a three-day period, the installation will come down gradually, released from the ropes and absorbed by the city. By using buckets—a symbol of holding the public space hostage—we are highlighting and questioning this pervasive condition, and also empowering people of Mexico City to reclaim ownership of their public space, one bucket at a time, even if only for a few days.

About Studio NYL
Studio NYL, a Boulder, Colorado-based structural engineering and facade design firm founded in 2004 by Christopher O'Hara and Julian Lineham. Studio NYL's vision is rooted in the founders' belief that all architectural design can be elevated through the inventive use of structures that enhance rather than limit design. It is this passion for raising design standards through the "artful use of structure" on every project—whether humble or grandiose in scope—that drives their distinctively poetic approach.
http://www.studionyl.com/

About Factor Eficiencia
Factor Eficiencia is a group of architects and builders dedicated to the application of efficiencies in all aspects of construction and constantly focuses on discovering new methods and opportunities in architecture and construction. Our passion for design has allowed us to collaborate with some of the best architectural studios in Mexico and with some of the best specialized fabricators in the world. For their proven quality, Factor Eficiencia ́s buildings have been widely published nationally and internationally and have received several distinguished international awards. Factor Eficiencia is currently led by Fermin Espinosa and Gerardo Salinas, AIA.
http://factoreficiencia.com/

Mextrópoli
http://mextropoli.mx/