800,000 people a day enter the United States from Mexico.1

141,000 pedestrians a day enter the United States from Mexico.2

245,000 passenger vehicles a day enter the United States from Mexico.2

11,800 commercial vehicles a day enter the United States from Mexico.2

80% of border traffic involves same-day travel.3

Two of the ten fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States are on the border with Mexico.1

The total cost of building a border fence between the United States and Mexico and maintaining it over a 20 year period is estimated at $49 billion.4

Mexican migrants make up as much as 37% of the population in some areas of the United States. 5

Between October 1, 1999 and September 30, 2005 more than 800 migrants died while attempting to cross the deserts of southern Arizona.6

 

 

 

 

The 1,952 mile border that separates the continental United States from Mexico is a datum by which information of demographics, topography, and the social and cultural exchange between two nations is measured and extracted. By visualizing these datascapes in an innovative manner and by giving subjective form to otherwise objective and quantifiable information, the designer re-imagines the physical and experiential aspects of the land. This process distills and filters the information in order to expose unforeseen relationships and to present new possibilities.
The projects included here seek to represent specific border conditions using the diverse datasets of checkpoints, physical and cultural exchange, migrant deaths, cell phone coverage, and migratory paths. This information is overlaid and recombined in order to generate a new terrain or border.

Rather than viewing raw data as a departure point for design, or a generator of form, these projects visualize specific datasets of unique conditions in order to elicit multiple, layered, and simultaneous meanings. Just as the selective presence of data alone cannot be considered form, neither can the concept or the technique used to represent data be directly transmutable into architectonic reality. Through the visualization and spatialization of information, the seemingly objective qualities of place and condition are subverted into a subjective reading that allows for multiple interpretations and new understandings of phenomena. These representations are capable of incorporating both quantitative data and qualitative experience. The process of giving form to information uncovers hidden forces that underlie numerical representation.
The technique, whether diagram, map, or trace, exists as a means for exploring complex relationships between data. This method generates imagery that conveys multiple meanings resistant to the delimiting of interpretations. Through new means of visualization, the role of the designer as mediator is heightened to its fullest, and the diagram transcends representation to become “an ‘abstract machine’ that is both content and expression.”7

Not only is the desert terrain that occupies a significant portion of the US-Mexico border constructed of layers of sand, rocks, and cacti, but also sub-strata datascapes of political, social, and climatic forces. Together, these constitute the topology of a specific terrain, condition, or phenomenon. Terrain is uncovered in order to re-territorialize place and render hidden cultural forces that question a priori notions of a purely geographic understanding of place. This is achieved through a collapsing of diverse datascapes that are given form through “a strategic and imaginative drawing-out of relational structures.”8

The goal of these visualizations, however, is not the simple representation of objective data in space. It is also a process for critique that accounts for political, social, and temporal landscapes rather than just geographic attributes. This type of representation calls into question the normative procedures and understandings that are described. The power of these representations lies in the variability of the data that is visualized and their potential to explore its latent qualities while questioning accepted spatial, social, and political boundaries. The new terrains that are generated present the border condition as more than just the sum of physical attributes. Discrete timescapes and datasets coerce the existing conditions into new relationships capable of exploring diverse functions in the production of new interpretations.

 

 

 

 

BORDER FLUX: Suzanne Matthew, MArch, MLA 2010

This project examines a series of demographic and environmental boundaries in the United States in order to define the border with Mexico relative to the movement and cultural exchange that occurs between these two nations. Factors such as climate, topography, and population densities are used to create boundaries with varying degrees of porosity that change over time (figs. 1-5). In consideration of these temporal limits, the US is represented as a matrix (fig. 7) allowing for movement from north to south (left to right) with the border delineated as a permeable boundary that filters these flows. A new topography is generated that interprets Mexican population density as a heightfield in order to describe this new cultural landscape. Sections through the terrain inverted this topography in order to reveal channels of migration across the nation (fig. 6).

 

 

Opportunity in Separation: Bryce Powell, MArch 2008

This project attempts to reorganize the physical characteristics of the 1,952 mile border through an analysis of datasets of demographics, topography, regulated traffic and trade flows, approved crossing procedures, and the presence of physical barriers in order to address issues of security. Diagram and model studies (figs. 8, 9) seek to define the spatial nature of the actual border crossing through the movement of people and goods from one side to the other. A detailed analysis of existing processes re-organize the constituent parts in order to optimize the flows of existing systems through security checkpoints while also seeking to locate common zones that would benefit from the introduction of new program.

 

 

Border Crossing Guide: Robert Couch, MArch 2009

In this project, datasets of migrant deaths, migratory paths, cell-phone coverage, climate and topography are collapsed in the production of a new terrain that re-situates the physical and cultural topographies of southern Arizona relative to the economic diaspora of illegal Mexican immigrants that traverse this land. The three-dimensional representation of these forces is placed over a base map of known and assumed paths, borders, cities and townships. Along with warnings for illegal immigrants this guide attempts to aid the often doomed travelers in a humane subersion of the political forces that currently delimit not only sovereign territories but also race and class [figs. 10-12].

 

 

 

 

Notes:
1. http://www.borderhealth.org/border_region.php (accessed April, 2008).
2. http://www.northamericaninstitute.org/pdf/guptavargas.pdf (accessed April, 2008).
3. Jill L. Hochman, ‘Border Planning for the 21st Century,’ in Public Roads, vol. 68, no. 4, 2005.(article available online at http://www.borderplanning.fhwa.dot.gov/current_article1.asp).
4. http://mexidata.info/id1778.html (accessed April, 2008).
5. http://www.migrationinformation.org/DataHub/maps.cfm#2 (accessed March, 2008).
6. http://www.humaneborders.com (accessed March, 2008).
7. Ben van Berkel + Caroline Boss, ‘Diagrams,’ in Move, vol. 2: Techniques, UN Studio & Goose Press, The Netherlands, 1999, p.19-25.
8. James Corner, “The Agency of Mapping,” in D. Cosgrove (Ed.), Mappings, Reaktion Books, London, 1999, p.231-252.

 

 

The preceding projects were executed during the Fall of 2008 for the seminar course INFOLAB under the direction of Assistant Professor of Architecture Nataly Gattegno. INFOLAB takes on the critical task of gathering, filtering, comprehending, processing, interpreting, forming and representing information in a clear and coherent manner.