Situated at the intersection of history, politics, and strife.

The site for this project is situated at the intersection between many layers of history, politics, and strife.

Situated on the border between Mexico and the United States, it straddles the line between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. It is the site where Don Juan de Oñate’s expedition from Mexico City crossed the Rio Grande, formally establishing the historic El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. This journey marked the beginning of the colonizing efforts in Nuevo México. It is also the former location of the U.S. military base, Fort Bliss. This base also became the headquarters of the Confederacy in the region when it was captured by the south during the U.S. civil war. Two barrack buildings still stand on the site.

The other major structure still standing on the site dates back even further. Known to locals as the former location of La Hacienda restaurant, the structure was once home to Simeon Hart and his family. Here he owned and operated the only mill in the region, milling Mexican wheat into flour for the local population and eventually Fort Bliss. Simeon Hart is the only recorded slave owner in the history of El Paso.

Today, the site has been cut off from Juárez by the border wall, and cut off from El Paso by a corridor of freeways and railroads approximately 1000 feet wide. Most of the site was recently sold to a non-profit organization called Abara, who asked several schools of architecture to provide proposals for the re-imagining of the site. This effort was funded by the U.S. Park Service as part of the Historic Trails program. The schools were University of Arizona (UArizona), University of New Mexico (UNM), and Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACJ). As part of the studio from UNM, I worked with another student to create one of the proposals which were presented to Abara and the Park Service.