URBAN INTERVENTION

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Desierto de los Leones Urban Intervention

After walking the National Park, the team of SEED realized that the Desert of Lions has many different spiritual areas to pray, called ermitas, this ermitas are small churches in the middle of the woods far from the population, and they were built many years ago for the Ermitanos (people that used to live inside the woods).

Today the people in the area had forgotten how spiritual is this national park in Mexico, and mostly they go to practice sports and to make bbq's.



We decided that an urban intervention in the Ermita San Elias wood be appropriate, having the porpouse of creating conscience.

We believe in the escence of human creativity as a tool to express. So we started two different exercises at the same time: the first was to paint, and the second was to collect all the trash that we found on the entrance to the Ermita San Elias.

People were avoiding completely this parts of the park, they didn't had the curiosity to go inside, and we realized that they didn't have respect for it because they were throwing garbage everywhere.

We started to create a path made of garbage outside of the entrace to the ermita. That path, in the middle is tranfromed in to pieces of nature creating the transformation of a non pure peregrinantion to a pure one. This intervention was to force the people to enter and observe.....................

The idea of entering a sacred place by following garbage transformed into nature was something that expressed our feelings very clear. we wanted the people to see, we wanted the people to feel, and mostly we wanted the people to have a pleasant experience.

We hanged the artworks in a rock wall at the entrance, so once the people enter the site ,they would find a work of art that in our opinion its a work that expresses freedom.

After the art work was left hanging on the wall, we started to document and observe the reaction of the people.
Here are a few images of families, friends and couples that entered the Ermita by following the peregrination.

We realized that the effect on the people was positive and pleasant, they expressed curiosity and happines, and many of them reacted by laughing out loud.

SEED(SUSTAINABLE,ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL DESIGN)

ECOLOGY

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The Desierto de los Leones.

The Desierto de los Leones (Desert of the Lions) National Park is located entirely within the limits of the Federal District, it stretches between Cuajimalpa and Alvaro Obregon boroughs.^[1] It is located in the Sierra de las Cruces mountain range west of the city center with an area of 1,867 hectares,^[2] representing fifteen percent of the entire Valley of Mexico.^[3] The area was used as a retreat for a religious group, thus the name Desierto (Desert) means not "arid place", but not populated. The "Leones" part of the name does not refer to the animals, but rather to the original landlord's lastname.^[4].

The park's altitude varies between 2,600 and 3,700 meters above sea level, ^[1] giving the area a relatively cold and damp climate. It is a forested area primarily with pines, oyamel firs and holm oaks with many brooks, ravines and waterfalls.^[3] The park is considered to be the oldest protected biosphere in Mexico. It was originally declared a forest reserve in 1876 by President Lerdo de Tejada with the intent of conserving its fresh water springs to supply Mexico City. It was later declared a national park on 27 November, 1917, by President Venustiano Carranza.

ART INSTALLATION

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Art Installation in Las Pozas

After walking in the materialized dreams of sir Edward James, the team of SEED realize that creating an art installation in the river would be very appropriate.

ART

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Edward James and Las Pozas

Las Pozas ("the Pools") is a sculpture garden built by James, more than 2,000 feet (610 m) above sea level, in a tropical rain forest in the mountains of Mexico. It includes more than 80 acres (320,000 m²) of natural waterfalls and pools interlaced with towering Surrealist sculptures in concrete.^[6]

The surrealist garden at Las Pozas, Xilitla.

Las Pozas is near the village of Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, a seven-hour drive north of Mexico City. In the early 1940s, James went to Los Angeles, and then decided that he "wanted a Garden of Eden set up . . . and I saw that Mexico was far more romantic” and had "far more room than there is in crowded Southern California.” In Cuernavaca, he hired Plutarco Gastelum, then a young manager of a telegraph office, as a guide. The two found Xilitla in November 1945.^[6]

In Xilitia, Plutarco married a local woman and had four children. They all lived with "Uncle Edward", as the children called James, in a house Plutarco had built, a mock-Gothic cement castle, now a hotel - La Posada El Castillo.^[7] James owned hundreds of birds and about 40 dogs, and once took his pet boa constrictors to the Hotel Francis in Mexico City. ^[7]

Between 1949 and 1984, James built thirty-six concrete follies - palaces, temples and pagodas, including the House on Three Floors Which Will in Fact Have Five or Four or Six, the House with a Roof like a Whale, and the Staircase to Heaven.^[7]There were also plantings and beds full of tropical plants, including orchids - there were, apparently, 29,000 at Las Pozas at one time ^[8]- and a variety of small casas (homes), niches, and pens that held exotic birds and wild animals from the world over. Massive sculptures up to four stories tall punctuate the site. The many trails throughout the garden site are composed of steps, ramps, bridges and narrow, winding walkways that traverse the valley walls.^[9]Construction of Las Pozas cost more than $5 million. To pay for it, James sold his collection of Surrealist art at auction. ^[7]

Las Pozas, Xilitla.

In the summer of 2007, the Fundación Pedro y Elena Hernández, the company Cemex, and the government of San Luis Potosí paid about $2.2 million for Las Pozas and created Fondo Xilitla, a foundation that will oversee the preservation and restoration of the site. ^[6] There are plans not only to restore the garden to its former glory, but to put it on the world art map. In November 2007, those behind the revival met at the garden to discuss the plans for restoration, and to celebrate the centenary of James's birth.^[8]

^WIKIPEDIA.