Congratulations to Grimshaw’s Gonzalo Casado and Lisa Martinez on their winning design scheme ‘Hydro-City MXDF’ as part of this year’s ‘Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat Student Design Competition’ in Shenzhen, China. The international competition aims to shed new light on the significance of tall buildings in modern society.

‘Hydro-CITY MXDF’ seeks to address the housing deficiency and water instability in Mexico City, which negatively correlate to one another. Informal housing settlements located in the ravines to the west of the city exist in precarious sites without access to basic electrical and plumbing services.

These ravines once functioned as natural recharge basins for the aquifer below, but now rainwater that passes through the settlements is contaminated due to lack of trash collection and household plumbing.

As a solution, their design scheme strategically implements a socially and ecologically sustainable network of mixed-use tall buildings that would remediate the ravines and shelter communities living in unsafe locations.

Both Gonzalo and Lisa are recent college graduates who joined the Grimshaw team in 2015 as Architectural Designers.