The New Zocalo

Mexicantown, Detroit

Project for the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale

U.S. Pavilion,The Architectural Imagination

2016

 

The New Zócalo is an elevated urban platform designed for Mexicantown in Detroit, commissioned for the U.S. Pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale, The Architectural Imagination (2016). Referencing the Mexican zócalo as both a plinth and a public square, the project raises the civic ground above the street, aligning with the adjacent rail yard. A network of gardens and oblique walkways connects six clusters of buildings—including a theater, recreation center, marketplace, winter garden, cultural center, and outdoor band shell, each embedded into the plinth and some extending to the street below. The plaza offers new views of the rail yard and neighborhood while allowing public life to coexist with the traffic and infrastructure at grade.

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The design draws on Augustus Woodward’s 1805 street plan for Detroit, extending its hexagonal logic from Grand Circus Park to the triangular site bounded by Livernois Avenue, Vernor Highway, and the railroad. Manipulated through animated drawings, the plan’s geometric logic is bent, exaggerated, and reshaped to generate the jagged outline of the plinth. This irregular edge mediates between the rigid infrastructure and the layered urban context, where industrial, residential, and commercial zones converge.

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Architecturally, the buildings are hybrid forms generated from two-dimensional tracings of Detroit’s theaters, factories, and houses. These graphic contours define both figure and poché, creating spaces that feel both novel and familiar. A vivid surface treatment—blending local color palettes across paving and facades—synchronizes ground and architecture into a continuous public realm. Through form, color, and spatial strategy, The New Zócalo offers a civic platform that reimagines Mexicantown as a center for cultural exchange and shared urban identity.

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Designers: Jackilin Hah Bloom, Florencia Pita

Project Team: Rachael McCall (Team Leader), Ivan Bernal, Kyle Branchesi, Javier Cardiel, Charmaine Lam, Nader Naim, Hyo Seon Park, Shane Reiner-Roth, Sandy Sanchez, Nithya Subramaniam, Claudia Wainer

Model Builders: Zaid Kashef Alghata, Cristina Macia Briedis, Coleman Butts, Albert Chavez, Isabela de Sousa, Wan Sun Kung, Diastika Lokesworo, Matthew Momberger,Nader Naim, Hahn Nguyen, Pinar Seven, Simon Sun

Consultants: Russell Fortmeyer (Arup, Los Angeles), Rodney Rojas (Sci-Arc Fabriction Shop, Los Angeles), *Special thank you to Sci-Arc for their support on this project.

Curators of The Architectural Imagination: Cynthia Davidson, Monica Ponce de Leon

 

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