The dunes of the Chihuahuan Desert informed the undulating, pink concrete landscape of this new skatepark in Ciudad Juárez's Oriente Park.
Coordinated by landscape architects Valia Wright Sánchez and Eduardo Peón Velázquez with architect Francisco Elías of Elías Group, the park on the northern border of Mexico is part of a governmental urban improvement programme to improve marginalised neighbourhoods.
The pink skatepark is divided into three zones
Called La Duna, the skatepark's dusty pink concrete landscape is split into three zones: a bowl, an area for street-style skating, and a beginner's area ? divided by trees and small garden spaces planted with desert flora.
"[The team] established as their main goal understanding the relationship between this section of the park and the surrounding neighbourhood, at the same time bringing in a bit of the natural context of the Chihuahuan Desert," said the designers. Its shape was informed by desert dunes
This reference to the desert influenced the form of the park's obstacles, intended to evoke the Samalayuca Dune Fields in Chihuahua, as well as the sandy pink pigmentation of the concrete.
To the south, a large concrete viewing deck sits atop a brown concrete classroom and office block and a cylindrical bathroom block, creating open space beneath that forms a "portico" leading from a public square through to the skatepark.
A concrete viewing deck sits atop a classroom
"The building was conceived as ...