School of Plastic Arts

The Oaxaca School of Plastic Arts was designed at the request of artist Francisco Toledo, in collaboration with the Benito Juárez University. An important premise incorporated into the project was the presence on the plot of land of a Mixtec ball game, used at weekends by players. The adjacent building, which served as a library, would become the university's new cultural center. The lack of a master-plan to integrate these elements led to the design of a project that resembled a large garden rather than just another building.

At the same time, works on the campus were producing enormous amounts of earth. This contingency led to the idea of creating a talus that would create both a garden and the isolation required for a school of art. Due to time and budgetary constraints, the school was planned in three stages. the first two of which have already been built: 2,270 m² in interiors and 1,000 m² in exteriors, a zone called "the crater" which defines the west of the ball game and the campus perimeter.

The school was designed with two types of buildings. The first group, made of stone, provided containment from taluses and a series of inhabitable terraces. Their orientation corresponds to the faces of the taluses with English courtyards and enclosed windows separating the
building's functions: the administrative area, media library and halls with a west view of the ball game and a line of pre-existing trees.

The second type of buildings are quite separate from the taluses, all north-facing except the gallery and main hall (north-south), built on compacted earth. This not only helps the character of the building -an organic system with uneven land that enhances the richness of walls and courtyards- but also constitutes an excellent building system that creates an optimal microclimate for the extreme climatic conditions of Oaxaca city, as well as providing acoustic insulation for the classrooms.

The workshops permit cross ventilation, with windows on the north facade, improving the indoor lighting and extending the interior over an open space of the same size as well as reducing the direct solar exposure of the interiors. These courtyards suggest a floor layout in the shape of a chessboard, where the alternation between mass and space in the walkways creates a variety of views and paths.
Preserving the crests on the shuttering -horizontal flagstones measuring 90 cm each- allows the building to protect itself like a porcupine, where the volumetry of the crests transforms the facades through the shadows cast by the movement of the sun, while also enabling objects to be hung, supported or tensed.

The main entrance is foreshortened, permitting a distorted interpretation of the whole from the outside with an apparently small scale. It proposes the interpretation of two sections which, in perspective, create a sort of virtual shell, on the basis of structures that grow from the outside to the inside.
The courtyards with gravel contain Mexican cherry trees that create a pleasantly shaded work area. The taluses are lined with easily-maintained sensitive plants and wandering Jews that support the intended garden image. The artist Francisco Toledo played a key role in the conception of the outdoor areas, deciding that the garden should extend around the school, like a living entity.

Mauricio Rocha Iturbide (México City, 1965) graduated as an architect from the UNAM. A professor at the Universidad Anáhuac del Norte. In 1998 he established Taller de Arquitectura. He combines his professional practice with architectural interventions in exhibition spaces. In 2004 he received the Gold Medal at the Mexican Architecture Biennale for the Market at San Pablo Ocotepec.