CTM Culhuacán Plaza Revitalization by AMASA Estudio

The CTM Culhuacán housing complex, constructed in 1974, is a significant chapter in Mexico City’s urban development. Conceived under the social welfare policies of the era, it sought to address the growing need for worker housing, ultimately accommodating over 100,000 people in the borough of Coyoacán. Its full name, Confederación de Trabajadores de México Culhuacán, bridges the area’s historical identity with the broader aspirations of the Mexican welfare state, reflecting a period when housing was both a political promise and a tool of social transformation.

CTM Culhuacán Plaza Revitalization Technical Information

• Architects^1-6: AMASA Estudio
• Location: Ciudad de México, Mexico
• Gross Area: 4,180 m² | 44,990 Sq. Ft.
• Completion Year: 2024
• Photographs: © Zaickz Moz, © Andres Cedillo, © Gerardo Reyes Bustamante

We saw this intervention as an opportunity to restore dignity to a neglected public space, using simple yet robust materials to create a new social backbone that is both inclusive and resistant to appropriation. The central structure was not just an architectural gesture but a tool for social cohesion and surveillance, ensuring the plaza would remain open and welcoming to all.

– Andrea López and Agustín Pereyra, AMASA Estudio

CTM Culhuacán Plaza Revitalization Photographs

Design Intent: A New Civic Spine

The complex faces challenges similar to large-scale housing developments almost five decades later. The ambiguity surrounding shared space jurisdiction has hindered effective maintenance and stewardship. A fragmented administrative landscape involving the Social Attorney’s Office and local government has left communal areas exposed to informal uses and neglect. These unresolved tensions have become tangible markers of a weakened collective fabric, manifesting in the deterioration and misuse of once-promising public spaces.

Within this context of ambiguity and disrepair, AMASA Estudio’s intervention emerges as a focused effort to reclaim and redefine the social nucleus of the tenth section of CTM Culhuacán. The project centered on a neglected plaza surrounded by the perimeter walls of two schools, a site that had devolved into a residual landscape marked by worn-out courts, broken playgrounds, and informal appropriation.

The design introduces a central gabled structure, a colorful and distinctive form that establishes a new spatial anchor for the community. This element provides scale and spatial containment, countering the previous fragmentation and preventing future encroachments. By placing this structure at the heart of the plaza, the architects ensured continuous visibility, creating an environment that encourages natural surveillance and social engagement.

Key programmatic elements include two basketball courts, a calisthenics area, a covered forum with lateral seating, a children’s playground, and a creatively integrated 600-meter running track. These were refined through participatory sessions with residents, underscoring the intent to transform the plaza into a space of gathering and exchange and moving beyond the purely recreational toward a broader social reintegration.

Materiality and Construction: Economy, Pragmatism, and Character

The intervention’s material palette carefully balances budgetary pragmatism and architectural expression. Structural steel profiles, pigmented concrete, and corrugated metal sheets form the backbone of the project. While modest in appearance, these materials articulate robust and legible forms that elevate the spatial experience. Their textures and colors infuse the site with a sense of renewal, replacing the worn surfaces of the past with a vibrant new layer.

The collaboration with Desarrolladora de Ideas y Espacios was instrumental in navigating the project’s financial constraints. By working closely from the conceptual phase, the team developed a coherent response that maintained architectural rigor despite the tender’s cost limitations. This collaborative dynamic also extended to other interventions commissioned under the same tender, allowing for the strategic reuse of materials and construction methodologies across distinct sites. The result is a solution that is economical and sensitive to the community’s specific conditions and social aspirations.

CTM Culhuacán Plaza Experiential Qualities

The transformation of the plaza from a site of neglect to a civic node is perhaps most vividly experienced at the daily dismissal of the surrounding schools. Children now gather around the central structure, claiming the space as a place of play, socialization, and community belonging. The landscape design complements this shift, introducing rainwater infiltration areas and integrating the running track seamlessly into pedestrian flows, creating pathways that serve both movement and encounter.

Through subtle shifts in paving textures, curb modulation, and carefully calibrated color, material articulation lends the project clarity and coherence often absent in ad hoc urban repairs. These gestures establish a visual and tactile language that reinforces the social purpose of the intervention.

At a broader scale, the project reaffirms the role of architecture as an agent of collective repair. In a city where large housing complexes face growing social and spatial challenges, the rehabilitation of CTM Culhuacán offers a model for how modest yet deliberate design interventions can restore the communal dimension of urban life. By anchoring the project in visibility, collaboration, and material economy, AMASA Estudio demonstrates the power of architecture to mend fractured social landscapes and reassert the dignity of shared public space.

CTM Culhuacán Plaza Revitalization Plans

CTM Culhuacán Plaza Revitalization Image Gallery

About AMASA Estudio

AMASA Estudio is a Mexico City-based architecture practice led by Andrea López and Agustín Pereyra. The firm is known for its socially conscious and context-responsive approach to design, focusing on interventions that elevate public space and engage local communities. Their work integrates robust material strategies with a nuanced understanding of urban and social dynamics, reflecting a commitment to civic engagement and sustainable urban renewal.

Credits and Additional Notes

1. Architects: Andrea López, Agustín Pereyra
2. Client: INFONAVIT
3. Construction: Desarrolladora de Ideas y Espacios, Alberto Cejudo
4. Structural Engineer: Juan Felipe Heredia, Germán Muñoz, Gabriel Briseño
5. Landscape: Maritza Hernandez
6. Team: Luis Flores, Gerardo Reyes, Roxana León, Cesar Huerta, Yanahi Flaviel