Tijuanologies | Summer '09

Zimmermann Final

2009-07-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

These are my final boards including the analysis board done by myself, Chen and Kailin. Enjoy.

FINAL : Jaipal Singh

2009-07-19T17:50:00.000-07:00

Final Review

2009-07-19T17:48:00.002-07:00

text and images to come...

Studio progress

2009-07-19T17:48:00.001-07:00

Mid-review pictures... Studio space... Misc... text and images to come...

Teddy Cruz - lecture

2009-07-19T17:47:00.004-07:00

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Josh Kun - lecture - 20 June 09

2009-07-19T17:47:00.003-07:00

Josh Kun has a biodata that could take up the entire webspace of this blog. He holds a PhD in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley, is the author of various books, articles, and publications, and has hosted and appeared on a range of radio and television shows. His lecture at Woodbury focused on understanding various Tijuanologies through the realm of sound, of music, of a soundscape.

Although Tijuana is a border city, Tijuana is not defined by it, not saturated by it. Kun steps back and discusses the Renaissance as the point where the world became more apparent as a visual experience, rather than the ancient sonic one. It was a time when things both worldly and divine were brought to vision, through painting and perspective, through sculpture and relief, and everything was "envisioned." Thus, sound became less important: vision was proof, everything else, heresay. This is true even today. Our terms for understanding and scrutiny are all visual terms: focus, discern, speculate, legible, etc.

But how much more can we extract from a place in the sonic realm? What would we begin to consider? Kun presents Tijuana as a Sonic experience: the 'clank' of the turnstile at the border, the tuning of the radio to "listen to the line," the false expression of Tijuana through pop culture in the 20th century, the denial of Tijuanan rock music, the idea of Tijuana as a crossfader (choosing where and when to listen to this side or that), traditional sounds, street sounds, DJs, mariachi bands. Through an energetic, diverse, and entertaining array of sounds and music, Josh Kun presented a Tijuana, both neglected and celebrated, both loved and scorned, all the while completely and totally real.

Kyung Park - lecture - 19 June 09 @ Woodbury

2009-07-19T17:47:00.001-07:00

Kyung Park came to the lecture series with a very specific topic: the New Silk Roads. This ongoing project of several years focuses on visual graphics and imagery in order to digest and analyze historical data, statistics, and cultural patterns. With its incredible diversity, legacy and history, Asia was once unified through the Old Silk Roads where commerce, communication, and culture were cultivated. With the end of Colonialism, the end of the Cold War, and the restructuring of Asia to once again become a global power, the New Silk Roads begins to contemplate the relationships between the EU, the Asian countries, and the North American Trade Network. Whereas geography and mapping used to focus on how we perceive the world, Kyung Park wishes to explore geography and mapping to focus on how we use the world.

Above: Captured image from animated video: the city as an organism. If the human is a single-cell, low-level intelligence life form, the city becomes a collective of humans all working together to create a large, intelligent, multi-dimensional being.

Marcos Ramirez 'ERRE' - lecture - 4 June 09 @ Woodbury

2009-07-19T17:45:00.000-07:00

Marcos Ramirez is a trained lawyer, turned carpenter, who found himself within the world of art later in his career. As an Artist, he has been able to focus his skills and experience into a single force towards the criticism and celebration of identity, culture, public policy, and stereotypes on the bi-national level, specific to the US and Mexico. His lecture introduced us to the many realities of Tijuana, including his first-hand accounts of violence and turmoil as well as notable moments of love and acceptance. "ERRE" is the founder of Estacion Tijuana, a non-profit located at the Border neighborhood of Colonia Federal focusing on Art, Architecture, Urbanism and Culture.

Singh Framework Plan

2009-07-02T10:41:00.000-07:00

Site Analysis + Research

Transit-Oriented Artists
( in Colonia Federal )

With the onset of a new Border station on both the US and Mexico sides, Colonia Federal increasingly finds itself further isolated from the city center. This poses a dilemma for creating an Artists District, or any commmunity for that matter. In order to sustain itself through the new Border station changes, Colonia Federal must endorse the following in its visions for the future:

1) Increase transit routes and establish a central transportation hub to bring more traffic and exposure to the community,
2) Re-establish a pedestrian-oriented connection to the city center,
3) Insert economic anchors into the surrounding neighborhood (Bi-national insitutions, Mexican heritage museums), and
4) Increase the density in and around Colonia Federal of mixed use, mixed income housing to promote a diverse and dynamic community:

MacRaild Framework Plan

2009-07-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

When we began learning about the Tijuana/San Diego area, we were presented with the debate of whether there is one region or two distinctly varied urban identities here. I have taken on the approach that there is a symbiotic relationship between Tijuana and San Diego. The two are different in some ways, mostly those that have political and economical implications, but indeed the two are heavily reliant on each other. For example, the squatter housing of Tijuana is based off of the scrap and re-use of discarded San Diegan housing. With tens of thousands of Tijuana residents working in San Diego, the connection is thus apparent.

This symbiotic relationship goes beyond just the Tijuana/San Diego region, but also works in Tijuana itself between the informal and the formal. The informal economy (street vendors, window washers, newspaper sellers, taxi drivers, etc.) support and purchase their necessities through the formalized economy of shops and stores. The development also has this interesting relationship between the formal and informal. The informal housing starts as a squatter, or group of squatters build a temporary house or development using scraps from other more formalized housing developments. As this development becomes more entrenched, it starts to formalized and the people living there change their houses accordingly, replacing scrap garage door walls with concrete block. The scraps then are re-used by another informal house and the cycle begins all over again. The final example I will discuss deals with the infrastructure. People need a way to move from place to place, whether it be by automobile, bus, foot, or bike, people will need to go places. When the government doesn't build these such pieces of infrastructure, the people will build it themselves. In the Laureles Canyon, a perfect example is where on the west side of the canyon, the government built a concrete stair that traverses the canyon from top to bottom, however on the east side, there is no such path. People who live at the bottom of the canyon and need to make their way to the top for groceries, school, work, or to visit the doctor, have taken old unused automobile tires and filled them with dirt, creating a set of stairs and an infrastructure that the people needed but weren't given.

The existing condition of a portion of the Laureles Canyon, showing the roads (paved and dirt) and the river in a 100 year flood condition. The informal settlements occur at the bottom of the canyon, often IN the riverbed (center of image). An increasingly formalized community is quickly developing along the west side of the canyon. This area has nearly tripled in population over the last ten years. To the east, atop the caynon is a very formal middle income development that is where the schools, services, and retail all are located.

Above are the main ideas that I have based my framework plan around.
This is a diagram showing the existing movement of residents through this area. It became noticable the routes that they used to access the top of the canyon, which are built using the informal infrastructure of tire stairs previously mentioned.

I am proposing moving the river's path slightly in this area, which will allow the creation of new land and space while also slowing the water's velocity during the flood stages, which will benefit not only the people of this area, but the Tijuana Esuary located on the US side of the border, where this river flows directly into.

This diagram shows the flood condition with the newly moved river. This shows how the water ponds up, allowing a slower rate of water downstream. This also creats the opportunity for filtration at various points so that sediment and trash can be filetered out of the river incrementally instead of all at once, or worse not at all.

This is a diagram showing the condition of the site. The erosion that is occuring along the caynon because of the natual sandy soil in conjunction with the amount of rain and water drainage occuring. This creates a large amount of sediment in the river itself which if left unchecked will damage the estuary to which the water flows.

The erosion also creates dangerous living conditions, not only for those at the bottom of the canyon who are building on unsettled soil in a riverbed, but also those who are building on top of the cayon as the land on which they built slowly erodes right from underneath them. Over time and left unchecked these houses will eventually become dangerous and destroyed by the erosion.

Finally, the amount of trash left in the riverbed is astonishing. This is often seen as a local place for people to get rid of their trash, pollutes and damages the natural reserve on the US side.

Erosion control is going to be handled as a way to help create stability in this area. Not only will this be the physical stability of the land, but also create a sense of stability and security of the residents who live in this area because no longer will they fear their house falling victim to nature's wrath. This will be done by planting a natural vegitation line along the east steeper side of the canyon. This vegitation will secure the land physically while creating a natural buffer along the canyon's slope. On the west side of the river, will be a man made retaining wall system that utilizes the discarded automobile tires as an asset as opposed to waste. Below is a diagram of how this system works. By creating this new retaining wall, new secured land is established in what use to be riverbed.

The above diagram shows of the 70 houses currently located in the riverbed can be relocated to the newly created land previously mentioned. This relocation allows those residents to keep their existing established social infrastructure including their jobs, where they shop for groceries, and their neighbors.

Through the moving of the river and the new retaining wall, new communal spaces are created that can be utilized for education, gathering, community events, community gardens, or recreation. The implementation of a new ramp that parallels the river also allows the beginning of a diaglouge between the residents on the top of the canyon with those on the bottom. By wrapping this ramp along the sides of the canyon, this creates a new infrastructure but also a public face to the canyon.

The framework plan from which I will work to develop a more detailed section in the next 10 days.Finally, very diagramatic sections through the site.

Video - Colonia Federal

2009-06-30T01:25:00.000-07:00

Amateur Video + Images: Jaipal Singh *
Music: "Polaris" by Nortec Collective, Tijuana Sessions Vol. 1

*3 pics on Revolucion Avenue pics courtesy of Flickr

Concept Review- La Esperanza

2009-06-26T13:14:00.001-07:00

Concept Review - Playas Corridor

2009-06-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

FOUR SCHEMES FOR THE PLAYAS CORRIDOR
Below represent four ideas on how to organize and orchestrate the physical form of the corridor itself. This area of interest will effectively be my starting point for developing a scheme for the development of the Playas Corridor and adjacent development. Scheme 1 represents the rough ideas of IMPLAN which call for a one-way boulevard couplet scheme with development between the roads. In schemes 2 through 4 I have steered away from couplet schemes and focused on two way boulevard schemes. Currently I am considering a combination of schemes 2 and 3. The main thoroughfare would be shifted to the west (as in scheme 2) meaning more short bridge crossings towards the top of the canyons. However the mouths of these canyons would fall east of the corridor allowing residents of the eastern neighborhoods and Colonia Cumbres to access the canyonlands. The alignment of scheme 3's road would overlay onto scheme 2 essentially becoming a local or frontage road that could serve local needs and be more continuous. Mixed-use development on a more predestrian scale would occur along this frontage road. From here I will begin to explore sectional as well as planemetric qualities of the site and jump scale to understand some of the major intersections.

Concept Review - La Esperanza

2009-06-19T14:55:00.001-07:00

Concept Review - Colonia Federal

2009-06-19T14:17:00.001-07:00

Basemaps created to clarify site conditions:

Existing + Proposed Border Stations

Flows + Movement Systems
Borders + Boundaries

Out of this understanding came three proposals for the site:

COMMUNITY 'en' BORDER
Opening up the 'space' of the Border to allow the Arts District to flourish and take full advantage of this adjacency to the 'Line' in a continued dialogue between two nations in one place:

CROSS-CANAL CONNECTION
Infusing a large scale pedestrian connection back into Tijuana city, allowing a rich explosion of retail + civic space as well as cultural + performance venues at and along the Tijuana River Canal:

REGIONAL TRANSIT HUB
Amplifying the flows and movement systems already existing on site and proposing a more robust and structure public transit system (trolley, bus) for local traffic as well as introducing a regional transit station to identify the site as an arrival and departure point to/from many locations around the San Diego/Tijuana Region:

Concept Review- Laureles Canyon

2009-06-18T17:41:00.000-07:00

The most difficult questions concerning the Laureles Canyon proposals address the relocation of residents in the flood plane. Since the last major flood was 15 years ago (an event that wiped out homes, killed many, and caused more than $20 millions worth of damage to the Tijuana River Estuary) it is difficult to convince current residents who have been living and building here for around 10 years that they could be in danger.

Mexico City - 9 June 2009

2009-06-14T21:34:00.001-07:00

Text and Images to come.

Mexico City - 8 June 2009

2009-06-14T21:33:00.004-07:00

Mexico City - 7 June 2009

2009-06-14T21:33:00.003-07:00

Text and Images to come.

Mexico City - 6 June 2009

2009-06-14T21:33:00.001-07:00

Text and Images to come.

Mexico City - 5 June 2009

2009-06-14T21:32:00.001-07:00

Text and Images to come.

Mexico City - 4 June 2009

2009-06-14T21:31:00.000-07:00

Text and Images to come.

Heriberto Yepez - lecture - 30 May 09 @ Woodbury

2009-06-14T20:36:00.001-07:00

"Writing, in Tijuana, means writing about Tijuana."

Yepez is a philosopher, a writer, a journalist, a psychotherapist. Currently teaching at Universidad Autonoma de Baja California, he has published over a dozen books of poetry, essays, short stories and novels. Made in Tijuana (2005) and Tijuanologias (2006) are two of his examples of exploring the history, myth, and culture of the border town we know as Tijuana. His lecture focused on understanding Tijuana as a heterochrony, a time-place, separate from everything else. It altogether bypassed Modernism, and went straight into Postmodernism, thereby exposing itself as a hybrid, as something that isn't natural, and has no identity other than that which it holds. "Tijuanologies", a term popularized by Yepez, are those stories of the city which have given rise to what it has become: Tijuana as a "good time", as "sin city", as border culture, as anarchism, etc. Heriberto proposes that we change these views of Tijuana from "aesthetical" to "ethical." He asserts ethopoetics as the means to viewing Tijuana: adding a dimension of realism and humanity to the myth.

"...the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack Up

Oscar Romo - lecture - 27 May 09 @ Tijuana River Estuary

2009-06-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

Oscar Romo is the Coastal Training Program Coordinator for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, based at the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve. He also teaches sustainable development and urban world systems at UC, San Diego. Oscar was helpful in our understanding of the Tijuana-San Diego region through an ecological approach. Not only do the two cities share a similar geography, but there must be a serious coordinated effort and awareness in dealing with the environmental concerns affecting both populations, both urban structures, and both nations. Oscar spent an entire day walking us through the multi-layered systems of understanding such a region through his detailed physical model of the region, various satellite maps, and a thorough site visit through both the Estuary as well as Laureles Canyon (to understand the implications that water in Tijuana has on land in San Diego).

Above: US-Mexico Border. Originally was an unseen 'line'. For years, it was simply the black fence extending into the water. Earlier this year, a second, taller fence was installed. This second fence creates a 'no-man's land' condition (...which is not so different from the Berlin Wall).

Tito Alegria - lecture - 28 May 09 @ El COLEF

2009-06-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

Tito Alegria (Phd, USC) is professor and researcher at the Deparment of Urban and Environmental Studies at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte. His understanding of the urban economics helps in the ongoing dialogue between Tijuana and San Diego, and the larger US and Mexico relationships. Through his research and analysis, we come to understand the Tijuana-San Diego region as two cities, two economic and urban systems, rather than one all-encompassing metropolitan region (as put forth by Michael Dear). Tito's argument is that although the Tijuana economy is highly dependent on San Diego, the San Diego economy is not dependent on Tijuana. Tijuana's growth depends on the adjacency of structural differences between Mexico and the US. "What is bad for the Mexican economy is good for Tijuana."

Project 4: Playas de Tijuana

2009-06-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

Playas de Tijuana is the coastal community of the city, a middle class suburb surrounded by lower income communities in the adjacent canyons. Working from the basic development ideas put forth by the Institute of Municipal Planning of the city of Tijuana (IMPLAN), the goal is to aid in the visualization and urban design of the specific partial plan currently developed. Current plans are to create this zone into a new economic and civic center for the larger community.

Project 3: Laureles Canyon

2009-06-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

In continuation of the previous studio's research and planning for the edges of the Canyon creek, this studio will focus on the center area of the creek with the intention to conserve part of its natural characteristics. Currently, the area is inhabited on both sides of the creek by squatter settlements on the East side and more formal housing on the West side. The client (Oscar Romo c/o The Tijuana River Estuary) desires to reshape and conserve much of the creek's flood plain to utilize the space for community ammenities.

(place images here)

Project 2: La Esperanza

2009-06-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

The site for the new La Esperanza Community is located in the Lomas del Valle area on the eastern edge of the Tijuana city limit. The area of the site for the proposed community is 1.3 hectares (3.2 acres). Lomas del Valle is part of a group of colonias created in the last 10 years by the city and state government through the relocation of families from high risk areas throughout the Tijuana and informal land acquisitions. The character of the community still preserves a rural quality and lacks sewer services. It is largely populated by low income residents that live in self-built homes. The client is Fundacion Esperanza de Mexico, A.C., a non-profit organization founded in 1990 to promote the development of such communities interested in increasing their quality of life through self-help.

Project 1: Colonia Federal

2009-06-14T11:54:00.000-07:00

Above: La Casa del Tunel

Colonia Federal is a small community on the Tijuana side of the US-Mexico Border immediately adjacent to the San Ysidro Border Station. The older community consists of 8 blocks of relatively low residential lots (2-3 story buildings, typical). Currently, there are 500 hundred residents in the area. Adjacent to the housing is a deteriorating shopping complex, once intended as an economic anchor for the area, but now home to a variety of informal occupancies. In addition to the neighborhood, this area is host to a series of informal programs and economies, dealing with everything from taxi and bus transit, pharmacy and health care, auto import and title agencies, as well as tourist shopping. Finally, with the adjacent highway infrastructure (both existing and proposed), this area is essentially cut off from the center of Tijuana, and the greater region. Although this has helped maintain a relatively safe and authentic feel to the place, there is great concern for the neighborhood's future economic sustainability.

At the heart of Colonia Federal is la Casa del Tunel (the Tunnel House) owned by Luis & Gerda Ituarte. This historic Arts Center was once the location of an illegal tunnel which many used to cross the US-Mexico border before it was discovered in 2004. After several years of litigation, the owners have once again claimed this building with a vision to establish an artists community hoping help spark a new life and energy into the larger community.

Luis Ituarte

Preliminary meeting with Luis (Prof. Rene Peralta speaking)

Home for future potential community garden plots

US-Mexico Border (from La Casa del Tunel's Balcony)

US-Mexico Border traffic (from pedestrian bridge)

Street vendors work their way through the bumper-to-bumper traffic

Yellow taxis line the streets immediately outside the border crossing

Tijuana River Canal (1960's government project)

The only South/West pedestrian connection from Colonia Federal into Tijuana City

Illegal immigrants in the process of deportation...getting sent back into Mexico

Photos are typically not allowed here - this was taken in haste at 5:45am one morning while we were crossing into Tijuana. Illegals are lined up, names listed, and sent on their way. Many of them are from various parts of Mexico (not Tijuana), and have no relatives, no home, no money. Often, they find their way into Colonia Federal knocking on doors asking for help. As a resident, who's to know if someone is knocking on your door for legitimate need, or if they have criminal intentions behind their motives? There is need for a Migrants' Center.

Streetscape at the edge of Colonia Federal

The streets just outside Colonia Federal are lined with these auto agencies, looking for business with car imports. Across the street are many pharmacies, dentists, and health care providers primarly attracting US residents looking for cheaper services without the need for health insurance.

Enter Tijuana

2009-06-12T17:23:00.000-07:00