Project One: The Macrofrontera Ecology - Bajalta Super City

Instructor: Gustavo Leclerc                    Collaborators:  Cynthia Orozco, Andres F. Ramírez, Nataly Rios

Socio-spatial thick mapping and ethnographic sonic archiving are utilized as mediums that can begin to suggest an alternative understanding to the region. The Macrofrontera ecology is generally understood to be a megaregion of multiple spatial, natural and human ecosystems. It is a place of exclusion and appropriation, but also one of resistance and autonomy. The multi-faceted nature of its physical and psychological borders and commons are elucidated within the thick map and podcast.




The thick map presents a post-border, hyper-real ecology that looks back upon the Southern California / Tijuana border from the future. It seeks to reconcile antagonism at the border by reimagining a unified territory where diversity and contradiction exists without exclusion, exploitation or physical segregation. A typology of border/commons divisions are represented within the map to become reflective of the elusive, adaptable, and juxtaposed forms of socio-spatial collectives. The overall conception of the Macrofrontera expands from its fragmented centers and fixed sites of passage to become a holistic backdrop for change and advocacy in its own right, one that contains various forms of hard and soft borders/commons. Through this matrix, the map produces conceptions of flexible, mobile frontiers that sustain invisible lines and shifting configurations of material and immaterial territories. The site of the US/Mexico border becomes an artifact, one surrounded by representations of the histories of the border that once was.

[Listen to the Crossroads Podcast Here]


The Crossroads Podcast broadcasts the voices of individuals’ whose lives are shaped by the border. Drawing from existing content narrated in the first person, the piece weaves together a curated account of real people’s experience of the border. Their biographies transcend and transgress static conventions of US-Mexican division. Crossroads protagonists share stories that respond uniquely to the border ecology and illustrate a transborder experience. These voices bring inherent border difficulties and conflicts to life, but they also reveal a borderless state of mind situated in a place of productive tension. Unlike a traditional story, Crossroads has no beginning, middle or end. It is a timeless piece that does not assign any particular hierarchy to the narrative. Each voice and story exists simultaneously and independent of each other but unified by an invisible border condition that directly or indirectly shapes their circumstance. The objective is for listeners to get a glimpse of the range of circumstances that shaped lives at the border and to showcase an ecology that is home to all of them simultaneously.

Project Two: Reading the Writing on the Wall - a palimpsestic reading of urban cultural representation

Instructor: Gustavo Leclerc                    Collaborators:  Clayton McKee, Cristina Vázquez

Similar to a novel, graffiti has stood testimony to humanity’s desire to communicate thoughts in engaged creative practice. By way of this artistic form, a semblance of order is produced in regions that are otherwise a confused urban landscape. Graffiti portrays an identity cemented in contemporary social circumstances at the time of its painting. The piece persists through space and time, being altered, amended, or appended upon by other artists eager to leave their own mark. While never fully permanent, the writing on the wall becomes an outlet and a platform for the voiceless to actively participate in the urban environment and politics; it also becomes a window through which others become a witness and are implicated in a social
dialogue.

Project Three: La Casa Para un Futuro Incierto

Instructor: Gustavo Leclerc                    Collaborators:  Clayton McKee, Cristina Vázquez                  Other Collaborators:  Marcos Ramirez (ERRE)

La Casa para un futuro incierto serves as a translation of our eCodex expertise from Los Angeles to the context of Tijuana, focusing on the active engagement of the public in an exploration of the art form and the self. Tijuana artist ERRE’s childhood home is reimagined from a space of private domesticity into one that functions doubly as an exhibition space and education center for the community. Various hands-on components form dialogues between identity and expression, time and place, and ultimately Los Angeles and Tijuana. The interior organization of the home for the future mirrors the trajectory of our eCodex where we explore graffiti in relation to identity, space, and time. 

Project Four: Socio-spatial Agency

Collaborator: Jenn Peterson-Ruiz

Produced as a independant summer research project, socio-spatial agency speculates on the capacity for the field of architecture to engage with cross-disciplinary work as a method of advocacy/activism across Los Angeles, made possible by the Urban Humanities Initiative Mellon Foundation grant. Our fundamental argument suggests the following:


1. The buildings we create are nothing without the individuals that occupy them.
2. We cannot assume we understand all the needs of these individuals.
3. Thus, we must holistically emulate flexibility and adaptability with how we design projects, recognizing that our expertise is not enough.
4. We need cross-disciplinary knowledge.






Through an analysis of academic literature and professional firms, the project bridges between theory and practice to form a digital resource that can be utilized by architecture students and emerging professionals interested in becoming cross-disciplinary agents of progress. We investigated a curated selection of firms to understand what and how they promote activism, in order to delve deeper into conversations regarding the agency of the architect in a cross-disciplinary lens. Published under UHI, the website contains case studies of built projects and course syllabi, along with various resources related to academia and the profession.


[See Published Website Here]