On the 19th of September 2017, an earthquake of magnitude 7.1 hit Mexico City, leading to the collapse of the seven storey building located on 286 Álvaro Obregón Avenue, or AO286, causing the death of 49 people. Resonant Collapses is an investigative platform that articulates forces of tectonic plates, lake desiccation, and building code regulations to reveal seismic destruction not just as the result of earthquakes, but also as a complex event entangled with environmental violence and institutional negligence. Resonant Collapses presents spatial and cartographic timelines, regulatory databases and architectural representations at interscalar jumps across time, from five centuries of colonial control of water to the split-second of the collapse of AO286; and across space, from the planetary processes of tectonics to the constructive detail of a slab, to contribute to the public and political conversation which addresses the question: Why did AO286 collapse?
