River Sister in Mexico
Denver will have a sister river park in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico. That park is being planned for the banks of the Colorado River, the same river which gives Denver half of its drinking water.
2017 Design Launch
El Laboratorio facilitated a November 2017 design charrette in Mexico to launch the planning for the San Luis Rio Colorado park. That charrette resulted in the Colorado River Greenway Sourcebook (English | Spanish).
The values—and design principles—identified in the workshop point to the importance of promoting, throughout the creation and management of the greenway:
- Respect
- Identity
- Recovery
- Social Cohesion
- Responsibility
Preliminary design ideas identified
Workshop participants also suggested a range of preliminary design ideas to use in soliciting public input about the future park. These ideas included: introducing additional pulse flows for recreation and restoration; incorporating aspects of the Cocopah culture in the park’s design; using native plants for reforestation and landscape design; creating opportunities for birdwatching, bicycling, and hiking; constructing an observation tower with zipline; and building a signature amphitheater, to be called El Acuífero (“The Aquifer”), as a sister amphitheater to Red Rocks Amphitheater (Denver).
A “Pearl Necklace” of interconnected open space
A subsequent design charrette facilitated by El Laboratorio in Mexico (October 2019) explored design options for a system of interconnected greenways throughout the city of San Luis Rio Colorado, a system participants referred to as a collar de perlas (pearl necklace).
