Report

Redesigning 
Vallejo-i


A metabolic approach to the decarbonization of Mexico City’s Industrial Sector


Spring 2024
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Research team
  • Roi Salgueiro Barrio, principal investigator
  • Afreen Siddiqi, research scientist
  • David Pankhurst, research associate
  • Inge Geraldine Donovan, research associate

Report team
  • César Fabricio Cortés Morado, editor
  • Paulina Neri Rosario, editor
  • David Pankhurst
  • Fernando Vargas Álvarez
  • Inge Geraldine Donovan
  • Javier Itzama González Nava
  • Rubin Jones

MIT faculty
  • Eran Ben Joseph
  • Mary Ann Ocampo
  • Adi Kupershmidt

UNAM faculty
  • Armando Hashimoto
  • Daniel Daou
  • Elena Tudela Rivadeneyra
  • Luis Zambrano González

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 Decarbonizing industry constitutes one of the key challenges for urban energy transitions. Although industry's urban footprint is small compared to residential land-uses, its carbon footprint is disproportionately higher due to energy-intensive processes. While cities increasingly focus on decarbonizing mobility and housing, industrial parks—often overlooked in public discourse and urban policy—require similar urgent attention. This project examines the Vallejo industrial area in Mexico City to propose actionable strategies for industrial decarbonization. It represents a two-year collaboration with Mota-Engil Mexico and the MIT Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism.

Our work addresses two interconnected transitions: shifting toward a decarbonized site and adopting an Industry 4.0 model. The first chapter, "A Spatial and Metabolic Atlas," maps Vallejo's spatial conditions and critical flows—energy, waste, water, and mobility—across local, regional, and national scales. This analysis identifies key intervention areas and proposes five scenarios for Vallejo's decarbonization. The second chapter, "A Design Proposition," builds on this research to develop design strategies and policy measures. Among the five scenarios examined, we selected the one offering the strongest energetic and urban outcomes.

The project proposes a hybrid Industry 4.0 district accommodating existing major industries, new vertically integrated operations, and over 15,000 housing units. Adaptive reuse of buildings reduces embodied energy from new construction, while retrofitted structures incorporate photovoltaic panels and water-capture systems. Vertical integration frees up space for logistics and creates a sustainable mobility network. A new energy hub will generate power from waste, reducing natural gas dependence. The proposal is studied at the block scale to demonstrate incremental, bottom-up implementation.
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Redesigning Vallejo: Energy Transition and Industrial Urbanism in Mexico City [pdf]

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