The School of Architecture of Universidad de las Américas Puebla and the Chair of Land Management of Technische Universität München worked together in order to develop sustainable intervention strategies in the definition of a green belt for Cholula.
The Workshop “The green belt as the memory of rural landscape” was possible due to the funds of Mexico-Germany Dual Year and Goethe-Institut Mexiko.
The opening of the event included, along with the welcome words of Mr. Jose Luis Jaspeado, head of the Department of Architecture of UDLAP, the conference of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Walter de Vries, head of the Chair of Land Management as the keynote speaker with the lecture “Land Management – Theory and Practice in Europe”.
Dr. Arch. Pamela Durán Díaz, coordinator of the Master’s Programme Land Management and Land Tenure and specialist in sustainable management of cultural landscapes and water bodies, Dr. Dirk Bühler, Senior curator of the Deutsches Museum and specialist in Cholula’s built heritage, and Arch. John Octavio Ortiz, founder of EDU Medellín and designer of Medellin’s green belt (Colombia), participated as speakers as well. Dr. Emma Morales, guest lecturer of the Chair’s Master’s Programme, moderated the round table with questions from the audience.
Dr. –Ing. Melissa Schumacher, alumna of the Chair of Land Management at TUM (2016) and currently professor in the Department of Architecture at UDLAP, introduced the green belt, the pyramid of Cholula, and Zapotecas’ Hill as the three case studies in which the 54 students from UDLAP, Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla and Tec de Monterrey successfully developed strategic intervention projects focusing on different areas of speciality leaded by the guest experts: community planning (Arch. Ortiz), water and sustainability (Dr. Durán), built and intangible heritage (Dr. Bühler), mobility (RC-seis7 Arquitectos), and land management (Dr. de Vries).
This event established the first stone of a hopefully long-term collaboration between the two chairs involved.