compliling past images

zoomed in - in progress...

zoom in site - in progress

site plan w/o extended area

site plan-2 versions

crucial flood zone

relationship of cultural centers

models...

using metaphors of connection, the idea is about taking all of the possible paths, and reuniting them over the river?

sketches/...

after looking closely at flows and the phenomenon of erosion, deposition and uplift both literally and metaphorically, skethes and models start to conceptualize the reconnection of the abandonned river courses (oxbows) and the various systems of flow.

elastic zones

"Unzipping" the border leads to elastic expansion creating zones of concordance. These elastic zones expand and thicken the border, creating pockets of binational exchange and zones of passage while accomodating the ever meandering river.

lines...paths...

revised fence image

zooming in...

zones: biogeopraphical, economical

The diagram representing circulatory paths in time starts to inform a pattern within certain geopraphical zones. These diagrams break down and reveal those zones

west to east; usa

international bridge: looking towards presidio

west to east;mexico

paths; time...

The flow of people, commerce, students and tourists is in constant movement and the patterns from north to south, port of entry vs. river... are drastically different.

mutability; changing course

mending wall, robert frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, 

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, 

And spills the upper boulders in the sun, 

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. 

The work of hunters is another thing: 

I have come after them and made repair 

Where they have left not one stone on a stone, 

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, 

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, 

No one has seen them made or heard them made, 

But at spring mending-time we find them there. 

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; 

And on a day we meet to walk the line 

And set the wall between us once again. 

We keep the wall between us as we go. 

To each the boulders that have fallen to each. 

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls 

We have to use a spell to make them balance: 

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' 

We wear our fingers rough with handling them. 

Oh, just another kind of out-door game, 

One on a side. It comes to little more: 

There where it is we do not need the wall: 

He is all pine and I am apple orchard. 

My apple trees will never get across 

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. 

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'. 

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder 

If I could put a notion in his head: 

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it 

Where there are cows? 

But here there are no cows. 

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know 

What I was walling in or walling out, 

And to whom I was like to give offence. 

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, 

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him, 

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather 

He said it for himself. I see him there 

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top 

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. 

He moves in darkness as it seems to me~ 

Not of woods only and the shade of trees. 

He will not go behind his father's saying, 

And he likes having thought of it so well 

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Glossary of Terms

FENCE [verb]
1. To enclose with a fence
2. To keep in or out with a fence; to ward off
3. To provide a defense for

WALL [noun]
1. A high thick masonry structure forming a long rampart of enclosure chiefly for defense; a masonry fence around a garden, park or estate
2. An extreme or desperate position or state of defeat, failure or ruin
3. Something resemblng a wall(as in appearance, function, or effect) ; especially: somethng that acts as a barrier or defense.

WALL [verb]
1. To provide, cover with, or surround with as if with a wall
2. To separate by or as if with a wall

BARRIER [noun]
1. Something material that blocks or is intended to block passage
2. A medieval war game in which combatants fight on foot with a fence or railing between them
3. Something immaterial that impedes or separates

BARRIER [military]
A coordinated series of obstacles designed or employed to channel, direct, restrict, delay, or stop the movement of an opposing force. barriers can exist naturally, be manmade, or combination of both.

"[The barrier] gives order to space... giving order to space is central issue in how people relate to places... Open, undefined space is threatening.

Col. Dany Tizza, Ariel Sharon's top advisor on the barrier, 2003

proposed and existing fences

There are 3 types of fencing along the Mexican/US border-
primary: made from 16' carbon steel landing mats from the Vietnam War running right along the borders edge
secondary: 10' fencing angled towards climber and located behind primary
vehicular: steel posts inserted into concrete buried bases. Allows for the flow of people and animals but blocks vehicle crossing.

..along the rio grande

uplift and erosion in the trans pecos region

threshold: elastic entry

he following images are looking more in detail at the lines that define borders and boundaries. A drawn or constructed line contains little or no space. When more than one line is traced or grouped, it starts to create space - a new boundary. This happens clearly at La Junta - the junction of the rivers at the actual crossing. At this particular threshold, ribbons of space radiate out along the "lines".