Dérive LAB Builds an Ephemeral Structure to Observe the City

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Dérive LAB is a multidisciplinary laboratory based in Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico, that seeks to explore, understand, and inspire alternative (new) ways of living and thinking about urban life. Through research, design, and action, they focus on developing art, architecture, urban design, and other disciplinary projects that impact three specific scales: public life, the built environment, and everyday objects.

With these principles in mind, they designed a 39-square-meter structure titled 'Monumento' (Monument), an ephemeral observation tower in downtown Querétaro created by dérive LAB to celebrate the city's 487th anniversary. The intervention consisted of a 12-meter-tall tower wrapped in white fabric, erected in Plaza Fundadores as a geographic landmark. Inside, a pink vertical tunnel served as a geographic marker representing the city, its location, and its territory.

Drawing on the idea of the monument, the hoisted object was not merely a physical, out-of-context element in the center of the monument zone, but simultaneously an interactive object for those who visited it. Climbing the stairs of the observation tower offered both locals and visitors a privileged vantage point over the city's panorama, from which the center and periphery of Querétaro could be observed. Monumento, a centripetal and centrifugal force, presented us with the old city and the new city, the heritage we have inherited and the heritage we are creating. A monument to the past and the future of the city we create every day, the city we experience on a daily basis and in which, without knowing it, we bear witness to history.
- dérive LAB

Credits

Project Name: MONUMENTO
Architecture Firm: dérive LAB
Architects in Charge: Jesús Ocampo, Carolina Martínez
Other Participants / Collaborators:  Ximena Ocampo, Francisco Paillie, and Jesús Méndez of dérive LAB
Volunteers: Eber Granados, Vani Monjaraz, Paola Gutiérrez, Arantza Perusquía,  Mauricio Monter, Begoña Soto, Ana Isabel Vázquez
Structural Review: José de Jesús Castañeda
Fundación Multitud
Secretaría de Turismo del Municipio de Querétaro