Summer 2024
Grant Award: San Diego Foundation’s Border Resilience Initiative
The Border Design Lab in partnership with Promotora de las Bellas Artes is honored to receive the grant from the San Diego Foundation’s Binational Resilience Initiative for Border Ecologies: Between Water and Land, a collaborative project focused on the conservation of Cañada de los Sauces Norte (Yogurt Canyon). The project combines architectural research, community engagement, and educational outreach to explore coastal protection and urban resilience at the U.S.-Mexico border. The work includes reciprocal design strategies, student-led drawing investigations, and the development of a children’s book on border ecologies—seeking towards a more inclusive society and interconnected future.
March 15th 2025
Field Study: Cañada de los Sauces Norte (Yogurt Canyon)
The Border Design Lab conducted a field study at Yogurt Canyon, in collaboration with Friendship Park Director Dan Watman. The team, including USD Border Design Lab founder Adriana Cuéllar, student researcher Jaziel Mayoral, and collaborator Alberto Salazar Corrales, documented a thriving wetland ecology anchored by healthy Sauces (willow) trees and clear water—evidence of the soil’s natural resilience. While signs of human settlement were present, the primary concern was the border wall’s disruption of natural water flow after rainfall, leading to ecological stress along the international divide. These insights are shaping conservation and design strategies for the Lab’s upcoming exhibition.
January 25th, 2025
Taller Mio-Nuestro – Parque de los Sauces Sur
As part of our environmental education initiatives, the Border Design Lab led the MÍO | NUESTRO workshop in collaboration with Taller Común and Promotora de las Bellas Artes at Parque de los Sauces Sur, Playas de Tijuana. Local youth reflected on the shift from “mine” to “ours”—my house, our city, our river—through questions about their neighborhood landscapes and relationships to nearby green spaces. Through two drawing exercises, participants mapped their environments and proposed individual actions with collective impact, imagining inclusive urban futures that integrate all forms of life. The workshop encouraged a sense of interdependence, inspiring care for shared spaces and ecosystems across species and scales.
March 13th, 2025
AMPS Urban Futures-Cultural Pasts Publication
Adriana Cuéllar contributed an article to the AMPS Urban Futures–Cultural Pasts publication, examining the complex border ecology of Yogurt Canyon—an unoccupied yet ecologically rich fragment at the edge of Tijuana. The piece explores how this overlooked landscape, shaped by water, migration, and militarization, challenges conventional approaches to preservation and development. Through fieldwork, mapping, and student collaborations at the University of San Diego, the article reflects on reciprocal design practices that confront environmental degradation while imagining inclusive futures across borders.