“Through rituals, we recreate structures that provide an element of predictability and, therefore, safety, around times of insecurity, transition and loss.”

Mexico City is currently the most sedentary city in Mexico. Its urban environment—defined by traffic congestion, a lack of public space, and pervasive violence—has shaped lifestyles that reinforce isolation and physical inactivity. In response, a growing culture of health and sports emerges as a form of resistance: new rituals that require the rehabilitation of open spaces to take place.

In Mesoamerican cosmovision, volcanoes have long been regarded as hierophanies—manifestations of the sacred embedded in the landscape. Today, the Xaltepec volcano, undergoing environmental devastation due to mining, becomes the ideal site for new contemporary rituals centered on health and collective well-being.

The project transforms Xaltepec into a public space for one of Mexico City’s most socially and spatially segregated areas. Through topographic intervention and ecological restoration, the proposal seeks to halt the volcano’s disappearance and reincorporate it into everyday urban life. In this new ritual landscape—symbolic, inhabited, and revitalized—a fragmented community finds a foundation for rebuilding its collective identity.