Speculating a Post-Border Wall Landscape: Re-Imagining the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands as a Space for Children

Abstract

The landscape of the United States and Mexico borderlands is a particularly hostile one for the children who inhabit it. This thesis explores children’s experiences in the borderlands of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, and proposes three design interventions that imagine a post-border wall landscape there. Utilizing research themes of juxtaposition, perforation, and entanglement; I propose three conceptual designs that consider the political, ecological, and community-based areas of influence on the communities residing near the border wall. In an effort to acknowledge and dismantle the violent history of the U.S.-Mexico border, this thesis provides a critical review of literature in regards to the border wall and its history in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. Through the development of three design ideas, this thesis also explores how landscape architecture can play a role in questioning the border wall as it exists today. As landscape architects, our role is to help others view space in a different way than it currently exists. This thesis contributes to a body of design work making an argument to change how the borderlands look, feel, and function for those who call it home.