CH2S Environmental Culture Center

The Environmental Culture Center is located in the southeast part of the Ethnobotanical Garden, thus being the origin and culmination of the route. It is made up of seven stone masses that appear to emerge from the earth and vanish into the mesophilic forest. This feeling has a timelessness shared with pre-Hispanic structures that seem to have always been part of the landscape.

The modular approach generates free spaces with service cores and clear vertical circulations, providing versatility to buildings that can adapt to programmatic changes that time implies. The roof slabs are home to ferns, lowering interior temperatures and capturing water. The openings are arranged to the north mainly, having others to the south for cross ventilation. The openings that face east or west are tucked in to regulate their sunlight. A language of dark-lined concrete and basalt is chosen, populated by vegetation and water that descend and merge with the terraces that provide atmospheres for the encounter between people and nature.