Heston, Alun, R. Summer, and, Aten (2008. Pe Wold Ttle eos 6 Cente Honneh, el op "Teora cic” in Antony Giddens etl, Le Tova al. riurLan (oe Praga de Deal Uon del Cte de aban Tang, rivect ugg. Etude de Ms, Vo. asia Nacional de carey, Mil and At 9 (395) Bard Caate AH Xrugman, Paul ig97-Desopmet, Gap, en zn Mercide, Aljndro (2009) Dindmia dea integraciony diferencaeion Fotra en Amba dl None e138, unas, lexi, rach, ames, and Richa Ak he US Menlo Border” ure Eamon, Vol. 34, No.2, ne ier, Alejandro, and Moist). Starx (999). fain y Cis Eames. Doce Banco de Meso, Pezzoli KR.) Mrciano, andl. Zaslavsky (oo, “TansborderCty-Relons and he Ques For inegrated Regional laming: Challenges Posed by Disaclated Infastratures, Fragmented Ecologies of Knowing, and Uneren Development apr presented athe World lanning Schools Congres, Shanghai, Chins, uly mn f2000. "NAPA and Economie Activity slong “pos Dolln Orga Sa Ulery, Covallhapeepnne fae stnoan oop goed Compas ayo hex rect bla fehl mpets Sn Dlg elon Heo neta pl “vet niin Any Gide lL Tr > NINE Thy Cr Practices of Encroachment Urban Waste Moves Southbound legal Zoning Seeps into Noth ‘Personal Reflection: Where Is (Architectural) Practice? Tirana my pai cet ya om of ‘own inceests, motivations, and procedures, hasbeen inspired bya citer, rep tation, and display have lost cei sociopolitical relevance and advo cacy. have been inressingly disappointed athe utility of ou design fields, n the contextof pressing sociopolitical elites worldwide the conditions of confit shat are curently redefining the terry of i- tervention I's been unserling to witness some of the most “cttng edge” practitioners of archivectue rush uncondicon the Arab Emicates to build ther dream cases, inthe process reduc ing themselves to mere caricatures of change, camoutlaging gentt- ito China and feation with a massive byperaesthetie and formalise project. cer in the context ofthis euphoria fr the Dubais ofthe word and the seemingly limitless hocizon of possibilities inspired by 2 sense of dissatisfaction, a feling of pessimistic optimise” remains tha ean provoke ur, head on, oslo addess the sits of confi that continue to define tes in the twenty frst cent. While international urban development in major urban centers has defined the decorates, new expe nomic and politcal recipes that achivetue peactce ental pact tive territory and the territory ofcollaboraion will emerge from zones of intervention in the elle of cone, the margins. ts in the peiphery that conditions of social emergency are transforming our ways of thinking about urban mat er and the matters of concern about the iy. The radialization of the local inorder to generate new readings ofthe global will tans 1 aboratryo form the neighborhood—not the city—ino the ut our time. fn this context, the tsk of architecture practice should be not only to reveal ignored sociopolitical nd economic teritotal76 ry histories and injustice within our currently ideologically polarized word, bt aleoto generate new forms of eoisilty nd activism, The furue of architectural practice depends on the redefinition of the fo ‘mal and the soil, the economic an the politcal, understanding that en ronmental degradtion is «direct result of socal and polticl degradation, ‘Nosdvaneesin urban planningean be made withoutredefining whac we mean, byinffascacture, density, mixed use, and affordabilis. No advances in hou ing design, for examp economic subsidies. As architects, we can be an be made without advances in housing policy and responsible for imagining cou terspatial procedures, political and economic structures that can produce new modes of sociability and encounter, Without altering the backward excision ty policies constructing the tecitory—the sociopolitical ground—our prof. son will continue to be subordinated tothe vsionless environments defi bythe bottomline urbanism of the developers spreadsheet, | am interested in a practice of intervention that engages the spatial, territorial, and environmental conditions a 1c of cone generated by disriminating politics of zoning and economic developmentin the contemporary city. This suiggests operational urban practices that encroach into the piatization oF public domain and infrastructure, the egidity of instictional thinking, and sal threshold, whether lob bordet zones othe local 3 idea the eureent obsession with an ownership soca. This also opens hat architects, besides being designers of form, can be designers of political process, pro forma economic models, and collaboration atoss institutions and juradietions. re practice needs to engage the reorganization of systems of urban development, challenging the political and economic frameworks that only benefiting homogenous, lar ‘vate megablock development. Instead, I blive the future is small, and this implies the dismantling of the LAG by pailating it with the mero: an ur- ‘anism of trot, No intervention int the public domain ean begin without first exposing polite jrisdicton an conditions of ownership, Cleat this points out the presing need fr architecture pactce to reengage the invis ‘ble forces and vectors of power that shape the territory. This isthe main opie ‘of conversation and exchange that neds to take place across disciplines, ut ot from the “Moving from these broad conceptual meditations into the specificity ofthe ‘San Diego-Tiuana border, one oscillates back and forth between tivo radically ‘Archit sale interventions managed by pi joltion ofthe classroom or the design studio. of constructing cy. At no other international anctue ia the world one can find some ofthe most expensive real sae, ike that found inthe edges of San Diego's spraw, barely twenty minutes ava from some of the poorest setements in Latin America, manifested by the many slums that dot the new periphery 0 nt types of suburbia are ‘emblematic ofthe increta division ofthe contemporary city and the tec aves of megawealth and the rings of poverty that sueround Tijuana, These evo di tory between her, Lam interested in processes of mediation thatcan produce critical i faces between and across these opposites, exposing conflict s an operational htectural practice. The crtel observation ofthis lo ality transforms this border region into alboratory from which to refect on the current polities of migration, labor, and survellance, to transform 1 tensions be ‘een spawiand density, formal and informal urbanism, wealth and power lof which incrementally is characterizing the contemporary city everywhere Raicalizing the Local Sixty Miles of Transborder Urban Conflict A newly reconstituted global border between the frst and tied words ie ricading them unprecedented way against the sectors of sarcity produced out of politcal and economic indifference. The border zones along this post ght political equator” are the site where the force diced by these global zones of conlct are amplified and physically inscribed and manifested inthe tesitory, producing, in tur, local zones of confit. The international border between the United States and Mexico atthe Sa netging as societies of overproduction and excess ate be selves division and contol pro sixty milion people cross annual Tijuana checkpoints the most trafficked inthe word, Approximately moting untold amounts of goods and sr smile cross-section, tangential to the bor vices bac and forth, A sity der wal, between these wo border cities compresses the most dramatic issues curenty challenging our normative notions ofarcitetureand urban cut begins titty miles north ofthe border, inthe pe tipery of San Diego, and ends thirey miles south ofthe Borde. We can find es. of colisios, erica janccures, or con ism. This transbe along this fics beeween natural and artificial ecologies, topdown development, and bottom-up organization #30 miles] San Digg. Ironically, the only interruptions along an otherwise continuous spraw, thirty miles inland from the border, occur asthe military bases chat dot San Diego's suburbanization overlap with environmentally protected lands. This produces a strange montage of housing subdivision, natural ecology and miltasieation, The confit between military bases andronmental zones has been cently dramatized as Falluja mock il lages, equipped with hologram technologies to project Arab subjets, are now being erected here as vernacular military traaing ses “15 mies, Large feeway and mall infastracure rons the length ofcoa Siding with an that descend rowad the duced out of the polities of water will define the future of his region, the recuperation of san Diego, al network of canyons, rivers, and creeks 1 Ocean, A necklace of territorial voids i po onflice berween large nfastruccure and the watershed. AS these truncated natural resoutees is esential to anticipate density #20 miles. Top-down private development has been installing 2 selfish and ciLhungeyspral of detached MeMansions everywhere. The conlictberween ‘master-planned gated communities andthe natatal topography flattens the ai ential landscape of San Diego's edges and encroaches into the natural cles oF re-prone areas. This archipelago of beige tract homes also exacer bates land se ofeseusion into. sot of apartheid of everyday ‘as miles. San Diego’ dovrntown has reconfigured itsewith exclusive ta nisland of wealth, delimited by specific zoning and budgetary borders. Laxity condos and hot and revenue, development powers, becom stadiums vention centers, surrounded by generic commercial franchises com. Diego. The proximity of ‘wealth and poverty found a the border checkpoint is reproduced her ino the conflict between porweful downtowns and the neighborhoot Iris these neighborhoods where cheap conveniently becoming the service sector that ose thi stew of privatization rom New York sinalzation chat surround the ‘immigrant labor concentra supports dowetown's massive projeetof gentrification, “Ho mils. The conflict between the formal andthe informal emerges a= ‘immigrants fill the ist rng of suburbanizaton surrounding downtown, revrofiting an obsolete urbanism of oer postwar detached bungalows. [1- formal densities and economies produc a sort of three-dimensional land use ‘that collides with che one-dime: ional zoning that has characterized these olde neighborhoods miles. At the border iself, the metal fence becomes emblematic of the acting the perennial alliance between militarization and uebanization, This eettoral conltis curently conflice berveen these two border cites,