The Power of Community Participation | Colonia Héctor Caballero Library by Proyecto Reacciona

AUTHOR: Melissa Fernández

Architect, editor, and carpenter. Dividing her time between writing, design, and the creation of everyday plywood objects through her workshop and brand QIRI.

DATA PROJECT:

PROJECT NAME: Colonia Héctor Caballero Library.

ARCHITECTS: Antonio Garza Ferrigno / Proyecto Reacciona.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Hector Padilla Ferraris.

LOCATION: Santiago, Nuevo León, Mexico.

YEAR: 2021.

AREA: 80 m².

Social architecture is an approach with as many satisfactions as difficulties. Overcoming political and economic obstacles requires strong conviction, tenacity, and an enormous sense of collaboration to ensure that vulnerable communities can access the basic infrastructure that improves quality of life.

Antonio Garza Ferrigno wanted to be a lawyer in order to help people, a dream that was frustrated after his uncle told him the reality of the profession. He does not clearly remember what led him to study architecture, but he does remember his permanent interest in doing good for others.

Later, at university, with professors and architects David Pedroza and Roberto Nuñez, he discovered social architecture and saw that this approach would allow him to contribute to reducing social gaps and serving others.

Thanks to Pedroza’s classes, he met Iván Darío Quiñonez, a Colombian architect who worked in the state program De Cero A Siempre, an integral early childhood care program through which they built schools in remote and low-income places.

Antonio loved it. Even more so after the workshop Iván Darío developed in the San Pedro 400 neighborhood, one of the most popular areas of San Pedro Garza García in Nuevo León, where he became familiar with the methodology of worktables as a way to dialogue with the community. “This is what I want to do,” Antonio concluded.

With that idea, he created Proyecto Reacciona, a nonprofit organization formed by students who “seek to generate a positive impact on society through social, inclusive, and participatory architecture, applying our knowledge for the benefit of the community.”

This is how, since 2017, they have managed to rehabilitate several parks, schools, and public libraries located in different low-income areas of Nuevo León, Mexico, their headquarters and area of work.

Proyecto Reacciona locates libraries in poor condition in order to rehabilitate them. - Courtesy: Hector Padilla Ferraris

Everyone Contributes

In the case of libraries, they have done this through a program of their own called Crear Comunidad, which locates cultural infrastructures in poor condition in order to rehabilitate them through citizen participation.

This is how they arrived at the Colonia Héctor Caballero Library, formerly called Hermanas Martínez Tamez. This space, measuring only 80 m² and built on a single floor, is located next to the health center, the recreation center, and the elementary school, among other facilities, thus consolidating an area of social and cultural infrastructure for the neighborhood.

Social and cultural infrastructure of the Héctor Caballero neighborhood. - Courtesy: Hector Padilla Ferraris

Based on a participatory work methodology and an approach focused on social and environmental sustainability, the project was developed through several strategies:

1. Worktables with neighbors to identify their tastes and real needs. This approach seeks to generate a strong bond of belonging with the intervention, ensuring its care and relevance in the long term.

2. Tripartite financing, with funds raised by Proyecto Reacciona, sponsorships from neighboring companies, and labor provided by the municipality.

3. Constructive creativity in response to a limited budget, using low-cost materials, local techniques, and local suppliers.

A Safe and Playful Refuge

For the interior design of the library, the idea was to maximize the available space. They achieved this by creating a total of five rooms, the main ones being the consultation room, the multipurpose room, and the computer room for private use.

Bookshelves with niches where children can sit and read. - Courtesy: Hector Padilla Ferraris

In the consultation area, the old metal shelves gave way to fixed concrete bookshelves integrated into the structure. This change achieved several benefits, such as improved lighting and ventilation, a greater amount of free area for circulation and access to the books, as well as safety and durability.

The purple color increases the playful children’s character .- Courtesy: Hector Padilla Ferraris

The multipurpose area, created from what used to be a storage room, is the most innovative space. Here, a stepped structure was installed, combining bleachers, ramps, and fixed shelving, all finished with carpet, allowing it to be used as a forum for screenings, conferences, or simply as a dynamic reading space.

Doorless cubicles that allow visibility and control. - Courtesy: Hector Padilla Ferraris

The computer area, with cubicles for private study, includes fixed surfaces in each one for seating and support, as well as a dropped ceiling lamp. Its open layout without doors allows natural visibility and control, maintains spatial continuity, and reduces the feeling of enclosure in a small area.

A Permanent Invitation

Projected façades, latticework, and color. - Courtesy: Hector Padilla Ferraris

On the exterior, the general volume doubled its height thanks to the projection of the façades through vertical finishing planes. This visual extension gives it greater presence and urban hierarchy, making it more important and more visible.

To this intention of improving the proportion and exterior compositional order, the color white is added, providing visual unity, luminosity, and neutrality to better receive and project light and shadow.

As a contrast to this neatness, two creative techniques appear that take advantage of the materials:

1. Latticework: on the four projected façades and the library’s two windows, this element is used with one variation: the bricks are installed at four different angles, creating an envelope with a sense of movement.

2. Color: the exposed ends of the lattice bricks were painted with one of the five colors required by the municipality. The light pink door inspires warmth, care, and serenity, making the entrance feel kinder and more welcoming.

That same tone, which expresses softness and a calm joy, is used in the sign with large letters that crowns the building with the word LIBRARY. This simple reference makes it more visible, gives it a clear identity, and provides immediate legibility.

It also affirms its public vocation and its function as an open space, always available to the general community and especially to children, as it seeks to promote their education and good habits through reading, community atmosphere, and care.

What other spaces do you think could benefit from a methodology that prioritizes the voice of the community in order to improve quality of life?

Ground floor plan. - Courtesy: Proyecto Reacciona

North façade. - Courtesy: Proyecto Reacciona

Section A-A’. - Courtesy: Proyecto Reacciona