BORDERLANDS
The U.S.-Mexican border es un herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country - a border culture.
- Gloria E. Anzaldúa
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Coursework this semester will focus on design solutions for the continually fluctuating and evolving Texas/Mexico border. Projects and exercises will promote and teach the creation of meaningful architecture for people from different cultures and nationalities. Students will learn to explore and express ideas through the elements of architecture and speculate how architecture can reflect new attitudes about different cultures living and working together. Through a variety of projects located within the context of the borderlands, we will have the opportunity to explore architecture as a tool of social infrastructure and transformation – taking people’s actions, intentions, and ideas and reflecting them in the built environment.
Across three of our studios, students will explore a variety of scenarios and problems to develop architecture operating across the divide, bringing people together in new and innovative ways. These projects will follow a professionally-based schedule of research, design, analysis, and final production. |
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Proposed Projects
Border Work/Study Zone:
A prototype shared facility attached the border wall providing children and entrepreneurs access to high speed internet and study/work spaces on both sides of the border.
Borderlands Live/Work Community:
Using a section of no-man's-land between the Rio Grande river and the US borderwall in Brownsvlle, Texas, students will design a small multi-national community allowing citizens from both the US and Mexico to live and work together.
A prototype shared facility attached the border wall providing children and entrepreneurs access to high speed internet and study/work spaces on both sides of the border.
Borderlands Live/Work Community:
Using a section of no-man's-land between the Rio Grande river and the US borderwall in Brownsvlle, Texas, students will design a small multi-national community allowing citizens from both the US and Mexico to live and work together.
Border Communication Tower:
A pair of habitable towers located along the US-Mexico border create a public resource providing missing connections to the people of the Borderlands – not just physical connections but the expansive universe of digital connections as well.
Border Wall Study:
Students will use the design-build process to create a full-scale construction of an architectural wall that addresses current issues, attitudes, and perceptions stemming from the US-Mexico Borderlands.
A pair of habitable towers located along the US-Mexico border create a public resource providing missing connections to the people of the Borderlands – not just physical connections but the expansive universe of digital connections as well.
Border Wall Study:
Students will use the design-build process to create a full-scale construction of an architectural wall that addresses current issues, attitudes, and perceptions stemming from the US-Mexico Borderlands.
