Inaki Echeverria has recently undertaken two new high-profile projects: El Parque Ecologico Lago de Texcoco (Texcoco Lake Ecological Park) located in the basin of Mexico City Valley in the barren area of what was once the Lake of Texcoco and the Papalote Verde Children's Museum in Monterrey, industrial heart of Mexico.
The Parque Texcoco project seeks to increase the proportion of green area per capita and the volume of storm water treatment. The project will also contribute to regulate water levels and prevent flooding during extreme storm scenarios. Once completed, Parque Texcoco will become the largest urban park in the world, reclaiming over 35,000 acres for public space and infrastructure. The space will feature recreational areas including more than 500 sport facilities and 115km of bike ways; a site museum, also designed by Echeverria as well as diverse research and service facilities. It will generate more than 11,000 jobs and will help increase and promote environmental education, while reducing the dramatic present condition and its pollution effects on the health of residents of the entire Valley.
Scheduled to open in Winter 2012, The Papalote Verde Children's Museum, located in Monterrey, Mexico will be an interactive and innovative museum that integrates the latest green technology into a bold and radical architecture. In this project the concept of a "museum" is addressed from a new perspective, as the building itself becomes part of the learning experience. Utilizing his design as a springboard to challenge the concept of the "museum" as a pre-established learning sequence, Echeverria aims for a user-generated experience. An underground space that reduces impact on the environment to a minimum, it also avoids conflict with the functioning of Parque Fundidora by disappearing inside the landscape. It is expected to become Mexico's first LEED Platinum certificate.