Embedded in the perpetual turmoil surrounding the busiest, and among the most contrasting international borders in the world, Tijuana encompasses modern global issues that range from mass displacement, imprisonment, to national sovereignty, making it an explosive backdrop for conflicting ideologies and ways of life. Growing up in the shadow of this border, a new identity formed called La Sagrada Familia, meaning “Holy Family.” Founded in protest to the plight, migration, and politics embedded in this border city and united by the subversion of traditional Mexican culture and identity. The group consists primarily of artists, designers, and musicians aged 17-25 who occupy empty structures across the city and repurpose them for artist studios, fashion shows, galleries, parties, and protests.

“The Family” performed their largest ritual act of resistance occupying a 10,000 sq m vacant space through the participatory excavation of the site, creating a perimeter-less space for impromptu congregation and self expression. Here, the act of digging as a form of subversion to the politically charged locale and reveals the complex clay composition of the landscape. A mirrored inflatable canopy floats above the structure, blurring the separation of earth and sky, and visually erasing all views of the site itself. Carving, shaping, and marking are used here as a tool for creating space, the exposed clay composition bakes in the sun; hardening and turning the ground into inhabitable space. The collective excavation, inflation, and construction performed here emphasizes the group’s spontaneous autonomy over the space.

The project was developed at the Royal College of Art.

KOOZ What prompted the project?

MA The project was prompted by a personal connection to the region. Growing up in San Diego, the U.S. side of Tijuana’s border wall, I observed first hand, the divide created in this context and the resulting physical and emotional displacement. Also, having Mexican heritage, a personal connection between these two separated locales led me to investigate more deeply on the architectural implications of this wall and wondered if there was any way to bridge this physical barrier through the unification of those who have been displaced and the subversion of this precarious context.

KOOZ What questions does the project raise and which does it address?

MA The project began with asking what, if anything, could architecture do to unify the youth of Tijuana who are fighting feelings of disconnection across the city due to the US Mexico border wall. After understanding that in order to fight these feelings and with nowhere of their own to gather; they occupy vacant spaces across the city and repurpose them, the question became how can this occupation occur on a much larger scale? And also asking what architectural tools are available to this group? On a larger scale it asks the questions of how can architecture give a group agency over a site, a context, and a hierarchical power structure? Another important question it raises is what does it mean for architecture to be human centered? While it does not answer all of these directly it does offer a system, logic, and architecture that can be used by the youth of Tijuana to answer the questions themselves.

KOOZ From Tijuana and beyond, how do you imagine the project evolving across cultures and through time?

MA While this project was directly about one specific site, the intention was that this intervention created a haven welcome to all cultures and could unify displaced youth through rituals, parties, protests and self expression. Those arriving in Tijuana displaced here have arrived from Haiti, Cameroon, Angola, Congo, Guyana, and Guatemala and currently have nowhere to overlap culturally. The timeline of the project is finite, but the lessons, tools, and systems learned here act as a template for future occupations in other sites and other cities by La Sagrada Familia; while this site is left with only the markings and imprints of their actions.

KOOZ How does the project approach the role and power of architecture within our contemporary society?

MA The entire project is essentially about challenging the existing distribution of power through the empowerment of those who have been marginalized, displaced, and left in limbo here. The youth of Tijuana have already been subverting this top down power structure through vibrant protests, and this project would allow them to do so on a much larger scale. The occupation of this vacant site allows “The Family” hold art events, feast, dance, share discourse, and party freely, in a space with no rules and hidden from the laws of the city.

KOOZ What role does the project behold to the architect vs. the community?

MA The community is given all of the power to formulate their own reality inside the difficulties of this precarious context. Using the architectural tools available to them and the process of occupation they were already enacting across the city. The architect’s role is simply to put this system for occupation in motion, to lay the framework for these people to collectively construct a place reflective of their immediate needs and desires, that is for themselves and built in a participatory manner. Ideally, in this scenario the architect is the community and the community is the architect.

KOOZ What are for you the greatest challenges and opportunities presented to the designer operating today?

MA I believe the greatest challenge for designers today is how to give agency over the design to those who you are designing it for, especially when they are not designers or architects themselves. How can you design for someone who isn’t you, your social class, or isn’t the same culture as you; how can you design something for them that is representative of them, their struggle, and identity? If it is possible to create a design that gives its end users complete agency over the design and its future and has an ability to help in diminishing or alleviating some of their collective struggle, then I believe that is a design’s metric of success and our most difficult challenge.

KOOZ What is for you the power of the architectural imaginary?

MA Architectural imagery to me is our greatest form of storytelling. The story can be scientific and detailed or expressive and impressionistic, but all are attempting to tell a story. These stories range from telling exactly how the structure is constructed, to human stories of inhabitation over time, to evocative inspirations of idealized futures. Each has a unique purpose and thus a different form of representation, but all are essential in relaying an idea. I personally feel if you can visually represent your project on both ends of the spectrum, from rational to inspirational, then that is when it has the potential to tell the best story.