SITE & LANDSCAPE

San Franciso del Oro, Mexico. A dead end stop of the Ferromex tail line. From the zinc and silver mines in the outlying hills, ore is brought to the refinery complex in the center of town via an elevated cable car system, distinct in the city's skyline. Sorted and extracted, the precious metals are then exported via train.

An intervention seeks to unite the terminus of the train tracks and the gondola system running throughout the city, bridging a discontinuity in the path of travel of materials from the mines to the end user.

Reorienting the tracks to meet the incoming gondolas, the intervention creates a fusion of structural systems: the repetitive profiles of the tracks linked by a stabilizing rail blends with the aerial structure of the cable cars - wires supported by guides and carrying the weight of the two diverging skin surfaces.

The structure expands over its length, transmuting a line in the ground into an infrastructural object, creating a complex interior space capable of accommodating all manner of public activities.