Appropriated Context

APPROPRIATED CONTEXT: LEARNING FROM MISCONCEPTION

CELESTE MARTINEZ

Appropriated Context:

Learning from Misconception Celeste Martinez Editor: Richard Klaja

ASSUMPTIONS This proposal began with a series of assumptions and misconceptions.

My misunderstandings-turned-reinterpretations began as a child when I was told not to learn Spanish; a language spoken primarily by some closest to me. My parents feared that being a non-native English speaker might hinder my education and future opportunities. Instead, I developed my own way to understand Spanish speaking relatives, picking up on subtle gestures and emotions to create a narrative of my own. Trips to Mexico were taken with apprehension and lecture of the potential dangers that plagued an area only hours away from my home. I was conditioned to associate an entire area, and a large population of my own culture, as “other”. Though the intentions were good, this was a misunderstanding I would attempt to rectify for years to follow.

Architecture has given me an outlet to translate my understanding of spatial relationships and gestures into visual representation. But much like my misinterpretation and translation of the language being spoken by my relatives, I wondered how much of the bigger picture I was missing. What were the larger contextual implications of my conceptual designs? What cultural, social, and physical effects might they have on

A group of Dreamers walk and sing arm in arm along the beach towards International Friendship Park.

the actual sites?

My thesis was a design proposal based on a collage of program I had found along the border dividing the United States and Mexico. I viewed these sites, primarily in aerial view, as spaces that allowed for mediation between the two countries. This trip presented the opportunity to explore these questions of actual contextual relationships. I had the chance to see the actual conditions, on ground level, of some of the spaces that I had chosen to implement in the final design proposal of my thesis.

What I was confronted with most was the physical presence of the border wall along the landscape. Upon arrival to the San Diego / Tijuana border, I was rerouted by signs indicating that trails had been recently flooded and contaminated with black water. Those traveling to International Friendship Park were forced to walk along a trail typically traversed on horseback. It was Palm Sunday of Holy Week, an important day of celebration to those of the Catholic faith, including three-quarters of the population of Tijuana¹. In my thesis, this was a space of mediation. In actuality, it was nothing more than a small fenced in portion of the park. Within this segregated area sat a Border Agent in his SUV. He was 1 https://www.citypopulation.de/php/mexico-bajacalifornia. php?cityid=020040001

stationed there to ensure that the capacity of the space be maintained to ten people at a time. I spoke to a man and his son who drove for over three hours to visit his mother, who was traveling from Mexico City. They were waiting their turn to see one another for the first time in months. Later a group of Dreamers comprised of mostly teenagers approached the beach. They sat quietly together before walking arm-in-arm towards Friendship Park. These children and adults sat on the hard dirt ground in front of a densely woven metal fence, ten at a time, to talk to silhouette figures of their friends and family members on the other side of the fence.

San Diego in Otay Mesa, California. Viewing or visiting the prototypes is restricted, and access roads to the walls are guarded by Border agents due to frequent vandalization and trespassing. The agent at his post at the time of my visit expressed his doubt that any of these potential border wall projects would be realized.

As a border patrol agent, having first hand experience with the expanse of the border in its current state, he felt that any attempt to construct even a portion of any of the walls would be futile. Now he sits at his new task of surveying prototype walls enclosed within the walls of the existing border.

It was overwhelming to watch those who I tried so hard to accommodate with my thesis proposal walk past me on this beach. Their lives so intertwined with this structure of oppression. It was then I realized how inappropriately minor my attempts at reconciliation were. This situation, much like those of many marginalized populations, required more than an architectural intervention of my design; what it needed more than anything was a voice in the conversation.

The other stance on this issue has made its presence in the form of competitions; a call for those in architectural education and professionals to submit proposals for border interventions. These proposals tend to be opposed to creating barriers or walls of any kind, instead choosing to explore ideas of mediation and coming together. Common themes for these types of proposals include porosity or camouflage; sometimes in the form of less oppressive walls within walls as compromise.

PROTOTYPES

Entry gate to International Friendship Park designated meeting space.

The concept of a border intervention is not a new idea.

The conditions along the border have most recently gained popularity due to current political rhetoric. This has forced many to define their stance on the existing structure and potential expansion of the United States/ Mexican border. Architecture as a field was no exception, being that the border is essentially the most basic element of architecture itself: a wall. The construction of such a massive project could potentially harness the efforts of actual working architects, builders and/ or engineers to build a wall that would simultaneously enclose and divide those around it.

Those in the construction field who chose to bid and create actual prototypes for the border wall include: Fisher Sand & Gravel Co. of Tempe Arizona, KWR Construction Inc. of Sierra Vista Arizona, Texas Sterling Construction Co. of Houston Texas, two options by Caddell Construction Co. of Montgomery Alabama, ELTA North America of Annapolis Junction Maryland, and two options by W.G. Yates & Sons Construction Co. of Philadelphia Mississippi². Full scale prototypes from these construction companies sit on a site east of 2 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/border-wallprototypes/?utm_term=.2423ade0dce6

Pedestrians and traffic awaiting inspection of a train crossing from Nogales, Sonora, Mexico through Nogales, Arizona, USA.

These proposals, much like my own, do more to optimize a view of absurdity of the condition or rather attempt to propel some design concept or theory, than they do to address the perhaps mundane but essential day to day living conditions of those directly adjacent to the wall.

The key is finding a balance in what one may consider trivial. Take, for example, the traffic implications of train inspections in the sister cities of Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora. I witnessed trains frequently crossing the border awaiting inspection and causing major delays in both vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

Why, as a field, are we not intrigued and tasked to view this series of “inconveniences” as deserving of purposeful and thoughtful design? There is no grand design gesture that could fully resolve the many deep-rooted issues that always surround any place of contention. Instead, we, as architects, should strive to engage the diversity of opinions, emotions and even inconveniences of those most affected by these conditions. More often than not, I was lectured by those I met about the daily struggles they faced due to moments of porosity that

the constructed portions of the wall create.

‘El Limite de los Estados Unidos’ is an unfenced monument along the border of not only the United States and Mexico, but also the state lines of Texas and New Mexico. Access to the monument and an adjacent Pancho Villa museum is only accessed by road through Mexico but by foot along the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo in the United States. When I arrived to the monument on foot, I was stopped by a gentleman in his car and later a Border Agent patrolling the monument. Beyond berating and threatening to release his dog on me for entering his property, the gentleman in his car also cautioned me of my own safety. Confrontations he had in the past with others along this trail typically involved weapons or agressive verbal altercations. The Border Agent who looked on as I was being scolded later informed me that the private ownership of this area mixed with that of federal property and the Mexican monument and museum has created a space that cannot be physically barricaded or house a checkpoint. He said this zone, free of the border wall, has actually intensified activity 3 https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/border-trilogy-part-3-what-remains/

and crossing and forced movement to occur more frequently through what was initially intended to be a marker of mediation.

This type of circumstance, and at some points the variations in terrain, make it nearly impossible for wall construction. Unfortunately, these moments of porosity are not particularly rare and in reality, tend to induce more danger and desperation than they alleviate. In actuality, they push those trying to cross the border to the outermost extents of the wall, far beyond any nearby trails, inhabitants, aide or even potential contact with Border Agents. These “holesâ€? in a sense, force many to walk in a number of harsh and often mortal conditionsÂł.

finally having the opportunity to have their voices heard and the realities of their conditions made more visible.

This proposal began with a series of assumptions and misconceptions which has made me greatly aware of my own deficiencies at this point in my career. From those deficiencies, I have learned now that the most we can give to the field of architecture is to remain vessels and advocates for adaptation and change. Instead we can look to encourage ourselves and others to not allow past failed practices, forced theory or ego-driven concepts create work that propagates misunderstanding or allows replicated design concepts to disseminate on an appropriated context.

MODIFICATIONS The project-based studio model used in architectural education allows for the experimentation and expansion of spatial comprehension using a number of design strategies that are then implemented on a real or fictional context. Architecture as a field continues to become more and more aware of its role as a proponent of the cultural and political zeitgeist, propelling education to address more contentious and topical issues harnessing the realm of theory and academic experimentation. This has allowed for students to become informed about, and in some cases, to become advocates for issues they may not have ever had any exposure to prior to taking a course or studio exploring the topic. Unfortunately, real world design does not occur in the same state of academic isolation and critique nor is it implemented and tested in a vacuum; its gestures and proposals have a more dramatic effect on the actual context and user to which it is implemented.

Now more than ever we should be sensitive to the limits of these high-profile design gestures and understand the scale of architectural intervention; scale in the sense of physical size as well as potential impact at ground level.

We have the platform and skill set to develop so much of our thinking into visual narrative and can use our training as a point of departure for advocacy. Perhaps part of that process is understanding that it would not hurt to exchange concept authorship and design intent with forms of collaboration. This balance could lead to those most affected by conditions of marginalization A typical backpack of supplies for those crossing the border seen in the Border Patrol Museum in El Paso, Texas, USA.

Border Agents congregate near the recreational sandhills of Royal Dunes Park located in Winterhaven, California.

The view of the border as seen from the top of Mt. Cristo Rey located outside of El Paso, Texas, USA and Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico.