PARQUE TEXCOCO

When in 2018 Andrés Manuel López Obrador, then Mexico’s president-elect, canceled the new Mexico City airport, the massive former lakebed that had been prepared for its construction was suddenly up for reconsideration. Architect and landscape urbanist Iñaki Echeverría, who had been studying Lake Texcoco for years and had proposed a “mix-use, ecological based Infrastructural” park there as early as 2010, was called upon to lead the area’s transformation. The result is Parque Ecológico Lago de Texcoco, an enormous ecological restoration and public-space project that Echeverría calls a “Manhattan for birds,” as well as an escape from the 23-million-person megalopolis that surrounds it.

But Texcoco, which officially opened in 2024, is also highly controversial. The cancellation of the airport caused considerable public opposition, particularly among business groups and investors, and the park that replaced it remains embroiled in disputes over land, access, environmental protection, and the rights of surrounding communities.

López Obrador is no longer president, and Echeverría left his position as director of Texcoco in December 2025, but tensions continue. Earlier in 2026, Mexico’s Supreme Court upheld the decree protecting more than 14,000 hectares of Lago de Texcoco as a natural area, while compensation claims by some affected landholders remain under review. Local lacustrine producers have separately protested restrictions on access to the site.

A year after this film was made, Texcoco is now under the new leadership Vannesa Bohórquez López and has entered a new phase of permanent public operation. The ecological restoration is also reportedly producing some striking results: more than 290,000 migratory birds have been recorded this year, while the endangered mexcalpique fish has reappeared in parts of the protected area. And with the fall migration underway this fall, hundreds of thousands of birds are once again arriving at the lake.

PIN–UP TV met with Echeverría in November 2025, shortly before he left his position at the park and began teaching at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). Walking the shores of Lake Nabor Carrillo, he explains what it took to make the park happen — pushing back against the idea that the degraded landscape was a wasteland not worth saving, and ultimately arguing that accessibility is the best form of protection. “The more people know about something, the more they protect it.” As for the design philosophy, it’s deceptively minimal: a few lines, a few ideas, and then you let nature do the rest. “It’s the way you design a garden. Every year is different, and that's part of the beauty.”