The story of the park begins in 2014, when Enrique Peña Nieto, the president of Mexico at the time, announced plans for a new transport hub for Mexico City. It would be built on the largely dry bed of Lake Texcoco, the body of water that had once surrounded Mexico City’s ancient ancestor, Tenochtitlán, the center of the Aztec empire. “It felt like I was stepping onto Mars,” says the architect, reflecting on being placed at the helm of the project. The park covers an area equivalent to 21 times the area of Mexico City’s enormous Bosque de Chapultepec park. What was missing, Echeverría says, “wasn’t a lack of ideas, but of political will.”