“The border is more than just a feature of our state—it is a part of our character. Our economies and cultures, and people are interconnected. Over one hundred thousand workers from both countries cross the border in both directions daily. Families live and work on both sides. San Diego and Tijuana were recently designated as the World Design Capital for 2024, the first binational collaboration ever to be awarded the distinction. Leading creative professionals in the U.S. and Mexico are working on innovative design plans for Friendship Park to exhibit our creativity, understanding, and international cooperation with the world.” California Leaders Appeal to President Biden for Reconsideration to Save Friendship Park
Friendship Park, Parque de la Amistad, is a bi-national park located at the border between San Diego and Tijuana. Its location overlaps one of the most contested land histories of our region: it is the area where the first boundary between the two countries was marked: a marble obelisk from 1851 demarcating the imaginary line from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, consequence of the Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.
Friendship Park started in 1964 when California voters approved funds to acquire the area as a park, and the International Boundary and Water Commission designated it as a place for families and friends from both sides to meet. In 1971, President Richard Nixon announced the area as part of his “Legacy of Parks” program, and First Lady Pat Nixon visited the site naming it “Friendship Park.” At that time, there was a simple barbed-wire fence where people could freely gather, converse, hug, and exchange small gifts through the openings.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Friendship Park was divided by the construction of a tall fence. The situation further intensified after the tragic events of 9/11, leading to increased border control and reduced access to the park. In 2012, a new binational plaza was inaugurated within the park called “Encuentro,” where families separated by immigration status could meet in person briefly. However, the physical barrier still restricts direct contact.
With increasing tensions between the two countries, the site has become a place of collective imagination trapped between a wall inside the ocean, global politics and local cross-border narratives. On the Mexican side, the wall is open to the public as an open canvas for citizens to occupy with murals, gardens, events, music, and food. On the other side, the wall is the backdrop of a militarized zone, with helicopters, motorcycles, and trucks patrolling a large zone that displaces the public in distant views. While in the past it was possible to coordinate with the border patrol social encounters, and performances such as weddings, religious ceremonies, picnics, or concerts, today, the site remains closed in sustained hope for a reopening.
Students from the University of San Diego explored alternative visuals and spatial dynamics of border walls as ultimate public spaces in contrast to the power struggles of marginalization. By combining theoretical inquiry with hands-on design exercises, students engaged with the intersection of materials and optical phenomena to re-shape the occupation of physical boundaries, addressing issues of inclusion, exclusion, and the interplay of distant versus near in the making of humane spaces. The design process is framed to address architecture as a social practice through spatial reconstructions for human and environmental connections in the multiple collective perceptions and histories behind borders.
Student projects reimagined the border wall as a portal; architectural drawings become the medium to invite questions on how to alter the perception of a militarized landscape into atmospheres of affection, bringing closeness between humans and environment, materials and culture: a sanctuary space of a heightened sense of intimacy addressing the alternative realities in direct disclosure of wall contradictions.
Student team: Diego R. Buelna, Azrah A. Dhanani, Viuna Farshchian, Jose I. Flores, Ava S. Flornes, Isabella C. Garvis, Giselle Hawa Moragrega, Katerina L. Martir, Campbell A. Newman, Sade E. Osagie, Bailey M. Ryne, Kaitlin R. St Pierre, Lukas R. Vargas, Nicolas J. Vorraso, Kayla E. Wilson.
PI: Adriana Cuellar
Reference: Alexandra Mendoza, Los Angeles Times “En 50 años, el parque de la amistad ha albergado amores e historias que rompen el corazón” , August 17th, 2021.
