Discover Three Landscapes by Mario Schjetnan and Grupo de Diseño Urbano, the 2025 Oberlander Prize Laureate
Xochimilco Ecological Park – From 1990–1993 Grupo de Diseño Urbano (GDU) created this 684-acre park, with an 1,400-stall flower-and-plant market, which layered interpretation, recreation, nature preserve, and passive spaces into a larger 7,413-acre cultural landscape, and UNESCO World Heritage Site distinguished by lagoons and chinampas—an ancient agricultural system of floating, artificial islands. GDU restored this cultural landscape while designing a complex hydrologic system of navigation, sanitation, and stormwater management and bird sanctuary.
Chapultepec Forest and Park – The oldest and—at 2,140 acres—the second largest city park in Latin America, and Mexico City's “Central Park”; GDU rehabilitated a landscape layered with Aztec, Spanish, and modern Mexican legacies. Over a twenty-year period GDU created a masterplan and a thirteen-acre botanical garden; oversaw the creation of vast new promenades and the planting, pruning, and removal of thousands of trees; rehabilitated historic entrances, lighting, and water-related infrastructure; and introduced wayfinding and visitor amenities.
La Mexicana Park – In the Santa Fe District at the perimeter of Mexico City, this former sand and gravel quarry was carved into the western hills of the Valley of Mexico and closed after the earthquake of 1985. A public-private partnership developed 70% of the 99-acre site as a public park and 30% as housing, related infrastructure, and urban development. A paseo (promenade) runs the length of the site and leads to an amphitheater that wraps around a lake embellished with a angular, red bandshell. Numerous amenities (such as a dog park and skate park) are shielded from view of the paseo, while at the park’s southwestern edge, a roller-skating park, athletic fields, and nature preserve are sited atop a partially underground supermarket. La Mexicana Park is rapidly becoming Mexico City’s most famous contemporary public park.
