Estudio 3.14, rendering from “Prison Wall Project” (2016) by Agustín I Ávalos (all images courtesy Agustin I. Avalos/Estudio Pi S.C, via Dezeen)
As many people are saying, Donald Trump, despite claiming to have “the best words,” tends to use the same handful of adjectives over and over again, like a malfunctioning evil robot. While spouting off about his proposal for a Southern border wall, he never offers specifics about what this wall might look like — just that it would be “big,” “beautiful,” “great,” “physical,” and “tall.”
To help the public visualize this stupid proposal, a group of interns at Guadalajara-based architecture firm Estudio 3.14 created 3D renderings of the wall in various border landscapes, traversing hills, deserts, and the city of Tijuana. The designers added a twist so perverse it’s surprising Trump hasn’t thought of it himself: The wall will double as a prison where “11 million undocumented people will be processed, classified, and/or deported,” the studio says on their website. Called the Prison-Wall Project, the renderings “allow the public to imagine the policy proposal in all of its gorgeous perversity.”
And since “Mexico will pay for the wall,” the designers figured it might as well pay homage to the country’s rich architectural heritage. In bright pink, their concept references the work of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Luis Barragán. “Because the wall has to be beautiful, it has been inspired in by Barragán’s pink walls that are emblematic of Mexico,” said the studio. “It also takes advantage of the tradition in architecture of megalomaniac wall building.”
The studio suggests that the wall could employ up to six million personnel. In addition to a prison, it could house a shopping center, as well as a lookout point from which US citizens could climb up and peer down at the other side.
Estudio 3.14, rendering from “Prison Wall Project” (2016)
Plenty of artists and designers have drawn inspiration from this talk of a border wall. Months after she famously drew Trump with a micropenis, the artist Illma Gore erected a white picket fence on the Mexico-Arizona border, adorned with a sign that reads “For Sale: American Dream.” In July, activist art collective t.Rutt began building a mini version of Trump’s wall on the Mexican border, using pieces of anti-Trump artwork instead of concrete and steel. Also in July, Los Angeles–based street artist Plastic Jesus built a tiny concrete wall around Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Last month, artist Sarah Sandman staged BRICK x BRICK, a performance art project in which women form “human walls” while wearing brick-patterned jumpsuits in protest of Trump’s misogyny. The design project that would accomplish the most, though, is no doubt the plan to build a wall outside Trump Tower.
Estudio 3.14, rendering from “Prison Wall Project” (2016)
