Pooling Xolo· · Taller Capital丨墨西哥

Firm： Taller Capital

Type： Government + Health › Community Center Landscape + Planning › Urban Green Space Waterway/Wetland

STATUS： Built

YEAR： 2025

SIZE： 3000 sqft - 5000 sqft

Photos： Jaime Navarro (14)

San Lucas Xolox is a settlement in the northern Basin of Mexico with a deep historical relationship to water, the volcanic landscape, and agriculture. Its location between a hillside and the former lakebed of Lake Xaltocan has made it vulnerable to the regional hydraulic model which, for over four centuries, has expelled water from the basin through drainage systems, pipelines, and pumping. In Xolox, this logic has resulted in recurrent flooding: rainwater runoff descending from the hill finds no absorbent surfaces and accumulates in the lower streets, disrupting mobility and daily life.

Conventional solutions, mainly based on channeling water through pipes, imply long-term costs and reinforce the loss of water as a local resource. In response, the community-operated drinking water system requested an alternative that would allow rainwater to be retained, infiltrated, and used within the territory, restoring a historical relationship between water, production, and collective life.

The Xolox Water Garden is developed on a 6,750 m² ejidal plot located near flood-prone areas. The project operates through a soft water infrastructure system composed of two retention reservoirs and two infiltration ponds capable of capturing up to 3,500 m³ of water per rainfall event, reaching an estimated annual volume of 10,500 m³. This system regulates stormwater runoff, enables gradual infiltration, and supports the irrigation of up to four hectares of agricultural land, while contributing to flood mitigation across 9,768.51 m². Constructed through terrain modeling using site materials, earth and stone, the embankments and slopes function as hydraulic devices and inhabitable spaces, integrating platforms, shaded areas, and gathering zones. Geometry makes the system legible, making water cycles visible.

The project acts as both rainwater management infrastructure and a space for community encounter, where water ceases to be waste and becomes the structuring element of landscape and social life in Xolox.