Neotopia

Urbanity in the Yucatan Jungle

In Collaboration with Alberto Kalach and Carlos Zedillo

This project called for the proposal of a new multi-generational city to be located in the northern region of the Yucatan Peninsula. Situated between the Caribbean Sea and the nearby rural Mexican town of Ixil, this city in the Jungle makes symbolic gestures reconciling the previous two locations through its formal planning. The “neotopia” strives to employ vernacular strategies, both scalable and repeatable, to elevate living in the jungle into a symbiotic relationship rather than a destructive one. By deploying a hexagonal scheme, it allows the urbanity to expand without harming the jungle’s stubborn, yet fragile ecosystem.

Careful attention was given to wayfinding and orientation within the new city because of the jungle’s thick vegetation and tall canopies. Streets, paths, neighborhood layouts, and scale are all considered to make navigation throughout the city intuitive. Predictability became an important component to the urban layout as wayfinding often relies on systems of signs and repetition to safely guide pedestrians.

The hexagon began as a formal curiosity which was eventually able to address multiple contextual concerns:

It’s ability to aggregate efficiently lends itself to a repeatable system.
It rejects the monotony of the infinite Cartesian colonial grid too common in the region.
It’s parallel sides can be oriented to establish a directionality within the aggregation.

As a pedestrian city, it’s mile length allows most areas to be accessible within 15 minutes on foot. Urban density is concentrated towards the center before dissipating outwards radially. This center is a congestion relieving park with 12 multi-use civic buildings on the perimeter. Dwellings reside on plots which are grouped with similar typologies into hexagonal “blocks”. In turn, these blocks aggregate into a larger urban layout which “races towards the sea” through an accelerating rhythm of lateral avenues. These changes in block sizes allow for an increase in plot availability, typological variety, and the jungle to penetrate across the avenues at multiple points. By way of these nature corridors, it diminishes the city’s impact as a wall separating the jungle, in favor of a bridge connecting it.

Finally, as the smallest unit of the aggregation, the dwellings are capable of compliment climactic resilience with urbanity. Its hexagonal plan allows for typological aggregation depending on the demand for space and program. Borrowing from vernacular traditions, vertical circulation becomes a pleasant tour around the architecture, shifting from interior and exterior conditions. Made from ruble masonry concrete, it is able to balance economical materials with natural materials found throughout the region. This synthesis is both structural and expressive of its local context. The architecture aims to sit lightly on the earth to minimize its impact on the soil. The height of the structures along with the implementation of north-west facing apertures promote cross ventilation throughout the spaces providing much needed cooling without the use of air-conditioners.

Holden Sho Miles

Neotopia