School
University of California, Berkeley
Date
Spring of 2018
Instructor
Raveevarn Choksombatchai
Category
Border wall as Architecture
Two Sides of the Border studio courses were initiated by Tatiana Bilbao, the principal of Tatiana Bilbao Estudio in Mexico City, as a big collaboration of U.S. and Mexico architecture studios to address the issues of building the border wall and how architecture can respond or approach to the current socio-political and territorial conditions.
Participating studios were Yale School of Architecture, GSAPP, Columbia University, Cooper Union, Cornell, University of Texas at El Paso, University of Michigan, University of Texas Austin, National Autonomous University of Mexico, CED, UC Berkeley, etc. The work produced in the studio will be included in a publication along with the collaborating studios.
Understanding the complexity of a border and the relationships of two sides, the course focused on defining the role of an architect proposing alternatives that could turn the physical border into opportuniries for integration. The ultimate goal of the project was to instigate and provoke social, political, and cultural consciousness.
The studio started with an exercise making a physical model of a line without using any types of adhesive to understand the physical and conceptual conditions of the border. Then, each student or group made a book as a design tool to get inspirations after conceptual narrative is set. For the main representation, the course borrowed the idea from the book, S,M,L,XL, by O.M.A. Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau to represent the architectural design vision at each scale of the project.
Exercise -a line
Line of an edge - a line that is physical but not being an obstacle.
Mixed media and method - A book as a design tool.
Project Abstract
Ojinaga and Presidio are sister cities located right next to each other along with Rio Grande river, which is the US-Mexico border. Although the river separates them geographically, people in both towns say they feel like they are in one big town. It is common to cross the border daily for both social and economic activities. Most economic activities happen as people cross the border. Residents in Presidio cross the border to see a doctor or for night life; residents in Ojinaga cross the border for shopping or to get medical equipment.
Located in middle of deep mountains, Ojinaga and Presidio need more connections than separations as they depend on each other for a number of necessities and share the same cultures all over the towns. Thus, the project seeks to erase the border and blend not only cultural relationships, but also life styles together through effects from rubbing out or erasing the border.
Every content on this page is copyrighted © 2018.
Legal terms click here for more details.