Underwater Museum (MUSA), Isla Mujeres, MX

The process and evolution of the underwater installation off the coast of Isla Mujeres, Mexico, created by British sculptor and diver, Jason deCaires Taylor.

More than 400 hand crafted sculptures stand on the ocean floor and depict everyday people going about their normal lives. Men, women, children are all present, all frozen in time. The installation, part of an environmental conservation project, is constructed as an artifical reef; corals grow and marine creatures feed, continuing the life cycle.

Jason de Caires Taylor’s underwater sculptures create a unique, absorbing and expansive visual seascape. Highlighting natural ecological processes Taylor’s interventions explore the intricate relationships that exist between art and environment. His works become artificial reefs, attracting marine life, while offering the viewer privileged temporal encounters, as the shifting sand of the ocean floor, and the works change from moment to moment. – Formele Capricioase ale Artei

Taylor’s website:  http://www.underwatersculpture.com/

Related articles

• Cancun’s Underwater Museum (aquaworldcancun.wordpress.com)

Mexico’s Organic Architect – Javier Senosian

Javier Sanosiain, Organic architect

Mexico is home to many gifted architects of international fame.  There is one, however, Javier Senosiain, a professor at UNAM, the Autonomous University of Mexico, who represents a select few in his profession.

Architects in the past of similar style and passion have altered traditional ideas and, more and more often, we see architecture incorporating principles that identify this unique group of architects.

Organic Architecture follows principles such as a desire to adapt architecture to the environment and to understand the roots of a place and the people who live there.  It is often concerned with the functioning spaces where people’s connections to each other and to the environment they inhabit are meaningful and well-integrated; all architectural and environmental components, systems and strategies must work together as one functioning organism. Often natural and unusual materials are used and land planning and the use of natural resources are important.

Organic architecture is not new although it has had different names in the past.  Other architects, with names many readers will recognize, have left a strong legacy.

Frank Lloyd Wright was a pioneer in this kind of architecture; his adherence to sustainable architecture allowed him to develop projects unique to each site.

Mr. Senosiain’s work is often compared to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright as well as Paolo Soleri, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Buckminster Fuller, Antoni Gaudi and Rudolph Steiner

You can see many other projects of this type and learn more at this fascinating site:  Organic Architecture Guild: A Sustainable Unit: http://www.organicarchitecture.info/category/organicprojects/.

The official website of Javier Senosiain is on my website lists. 

It’s helpful to preview a few images of these other architect/designers’ work  before we look at Senosiain’s. It will make it easier to see the parallels and realize what an impact this architecture has had on our world and how the style and ethos has survived over time. The slideshow begins with images of these other architects work, followed by Sanosaian’s:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Noteworthy: many of Senosian’s ‘homes’ are in Naucalpan, Mexico City. In his construction, he uses many diverse materials including shells, local stone, wood, fly ash, slab foams, cellulose, mineral fiber, recycled blue jeans, recycled newsprint, wastepaper composite, low toxic resins and other materials.

Mexico’s solar potential

The world’s largest developer of solar thermal plants, Abengoa SA of Spain plans to build Mexico’s first solar-thermal hybrid power plant. The plant will begin operation in 2013

I miss many things about my last country of residence and something I miss a great deal is the active pursuit of eco-friendly initiatives in so many areas of life, wonderful (and adequate) public transportation, subways, trains, and light rail, bike programs, established, functioning recycling programs, tree planting, conscious green space planning, solar panels, hi-tech wind mills and many other things.

So, when I dropped into read the recent posts of The Mexile, I read his post with many of the same questions he poses. Why aren’t there more solar panels in Mexico City?   Maybe we just don’t see them?

He did some research and found that Mexico has the world’s third largest solar potential. This drove me to find out more;  I found that in Latin America, Mexico leads in the use of solar energy.  There are also creative architectural initiatives in process by locals like Jorge Hernandez de la Garza. He has plans for a stunning Vertical Park to infuse the city with much-needed green space in the form of a modular skyscraper made up of a series of stacking units. The solar-powered structure contains sky-gardens in addition to spaces for living and working, and recycles all of its own water.

Read more: Vertical Park: Stackable Solar Skyscraper for Mexico City | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

There are also projects underway in low income neighborhoods.  The inhabitants of the barrio of Heroes de Tecamec do not have much money. But the people in this workers’ quarter of Mexico City are doing their part for climate protection.They use the energy of the sun to heat their water. There are sixty thousand houses in the barrio, a good one thousand have solar panels on their roofs. For the past two years Mexico has been running a cheap loan scheme to finance the installation of solar panels.

Excerpt from Clean Technica:  Mexico a Solar Energy Goldmine

A new report out from Mexico’s energy department, SENER, delves deeply into the nation’s vast solar energy potential, which is well above that of current solar energy leaders Germany and Spain. The report, Solar Energy Sector has a ton of info on the solar potential of Mexico, but here are a number of key findings:

• Only 0.06% of Mexico (in land area) would be needed to power the entire nation from solar energy (according to 2005 usage rates).
• “Mexico’s average solar resources for PV (5 kWh/m2/day) are more than 60% higher than the best solar in Germany (5.4 GW of installed PV).”
• “PV installed in many cities across Northern and Central Mexico has an ‘energy payback time’ (EPBT) of less than two years.”
• “Northern Mexico’s Direct Normal Insolation is equivalent to the best in the U.S. Southwest and in the North African deserts.”

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/12u0Z)

Graph from SENER, (The Energy Dept. in Mexico)

Investors are taking note too: http://seekingalpha.com/article/213492-sunny-mexico-a-solar-energy-opportunity

The Mexile found something on a much smaller scale.  It’s modest and eco-friendly but there are a lot of other people who appreciate sunny Mexico too and plan to make GOOD use of it.

What do you know about green iniciatives in Mexico City?