Mexico City's Highline

Mexico City’s Parque La Mexicana was a finalist in this year’s Rosa Barba International Landscape Award. 

Part of the Highline Network, the 70 acre park designed by architects Mario Schjetnan and Victor Marquez was inaugurated in November 2017, and receives more than two million visitors every year. 

Parque La Mexicana sits on land that became a debris disposal after Mexico City’s 1985 earthquake.

After seven years of negotiations, neighbours made an agreement with the mayor for the city to sell 30% of the land and use the revenue to build a park on the remaining 70%.

The government granted the Neighbourhood Association of Santa Fe a 40-year concession for the use and management of the park, which currently runs solely on the revenue generated by its commercial venues, bathrooms and parking lots.

A main walkway runs through 100,000 square-metres of gardens, 5,000 trees, two lakes, a skatepark, playgrounds, dog park, amphitheatre, central fountain, and running and cycling track. 

Large green areas include more than one million plants and 600 shrubs which grew during the pandemic.

Over 2,500 species endemic to Santa Fe have been planted, requiring minimal maintenance, and each garden features a variety of tree species according to the activity for which it was designed.

The park’s commitment to the environment has seen all materials deposited on the site after the earthquake left on the ground and not taken to landfill.

Rainwater is collected through a bio-ditch that runs through the park and arrives to be stored in a 24,000 cubic-metre cistern, and potable water is only used for the water fountains, with the park’s irrigation systems and toilets using rain or treated water.

Lakes trap pollutants from the air and serve as a home for migratory birds. They also decrease the urban temperature while increasing urban humidity.

Twenty of the 28 acres of Parque La Mexicana construction have been completed with the remainder of the space still being worked on.