Tatiana Bilbao

Botanical Garden . Culiacán

Tatiana Bilbao . world-architects . +  Iwan Baan

The Botanical Garden in Culiacán possesses one of the largest collections of plants in the world.

Construction of the garden began twenty years ago with funding from the state government and the private sector. The design has been spontaneous, creating an unplanned arrangement of buildings and walkways.
The renovation project began when the chairman of the board of trustees decided to invite curator Patrick Charpenel to develop a design, calling on prestigious artists to execute works specifically for the site.
It was decided in the process that an architect would design new buildings for the programs and interventions. The exuberant natural growth of the garden is its most remarkable quality, and constitutes at the same time the greatest problem in terms of planning. The master plan sought to reconcile nature and art while integrating the buildings called for by the program.
After various geometric patterns were tried out, a model inspired by one of the trees in the garden was chosen. The outline of its branches inspired the principle of the master plan, whose resulting abstraction was grafted onto the existing layout of the botanical garden. The paths were arranged in a "layered" hierarchy of different sizes and materials, and the branches cut or moved to make them coincide with the existing paths.
In the new layout, the buildings seem to emerge as if they had been there forever. Two small buildings form the main entrance (offices, ticket window, gift shop, and restrooms); two others form the southern entrance (gift shop, cafeteria, restrooms); and a group of three makes up the cultural zone (exhibition area, pottery workshop, library).
Three more buildings form the educational area (classrooms, auditorium, restrooms) and contain the greenhouse for rare species. A series of pools helps to mitigate the high temperatures. Each body of water was designed in accordance with its particular use and situation: some emanate tranquility, others are home to fishes or aquatic plants.

Architect: Tatiana Bilbao S.C.
Design Team: Tatiana Bilbao, David Vaner, Catia Bilbao (master plan), Israel Alvarez, Mariana Tello, Eliza Figueroa, Lina Rúelas, Sebastián Córdova, Carlos Leguizamo, Paola Toriz, Ana Yumbe, Julieta Sobral de Elía, Roberto Rosales (design)
Models: Mauricio Rodriguez, Roberto Rodriguez, Isais Corona, Omar Diaz, Ana Castellá, Essiak Fernandez, Thorsten Englert, Adriana Carvalho