Location:
Mexico City, Mexico
Year:
2020
The Lava Garden draws its inspiration from the ground on which it sits. It is located in Pedregal, the volcanic stone landscape in the south of Mexico City that became the setting for a modernist suburban neighbourhood planned by Mexican architect Luis Barragán in the mid-1940s. The area was shaped by the presence of the volcanic terrain, with houses and gardens conceived in close relationship to the dark, rugged landscape.
Over time, however, many of these gardens have lost their relationship to the ancient ground. In some cases, the lava has been removed; in others, it has been covered with new soil in order to create large, flat lawns. The Lava Garden takes the opposite approach, treating the existing volcanic stone not as an obstacle to be cleared, but as the starting point for the garden.
The project began with the desire to work with the dark, porous stone and to preserve its presence throughout the landscape. Rather than creating a single open lawn, the garden unfolds through a series of small paths, intimate platforms and planted areas, allowing visitors to move through the vegetation and gradually discover different parts of the site.
The planting is intended to make the garden something to experience rather than simply observe. Fruit trees invite visitors to stop, observe and smell their changing produce; aromatic herbs can be harvested along the way, while medicinal shrubs introduce another layer of interaction with the landscape. These everyday uses bring attention back to the garden as a living and productive space.
By enriching the experience and introducing new ways of inhabiting the garden, its boundaries begin to disappear. The distinction between path and planting, garden and volcanic ground, cultivated and wild becomes less defined. Instead, the landscape becomes a continuous experience in which the ancient stone remains present beneath and between the vegetation.
The garden is therefore less about transforming the site than about revealing and inhabiting what was already there.
