What if the border wall proposed by Trump didn’t have to be built in concrete, but rather out of that ubiquitous staple of BArch theses and “pop-up” urbanism, shipping containers? That’s the twee take of DOMO Design Studio, who propose a “softer, gentler” version of the wall, wherein shipping containers line the US/Mexico border. And, if that wasn’t enough, the shipping containers will include other tropes of contemporary urbanism, from retail spaces to micro housing.
Yep, that’s right: DOMO Design Studio imagines you might want to live in a tiny home within a piece of divisive infrastructure! It’s the Bushwick of xenophobic nationalism: a dystopia of hipster consumerism set within an aestheticized landscape populated by the signifiers of the post-industrial economy!
“One of our goals was to not be like the Great Wall of China or the Berlin Wall or any of those typologies that represent division,” principal architect Francisco Llado told Politico. “Our design is not about division but about unity of sense and sustainable functionality.”
According to their design proposal, we wouldn’t have to worry about Mexico footing the bill since the wall would pay for itself by becoming a mall. The designers also go on about how this would be sustainable, although it seems like a) it would be hard to move shipping containers to the Sonoran desert and b) are there even that many retired shipping containers around?
We are seeing the result of years and years of neglect by architecture's leading organizations and media figures (replaced by hacks). no accident that in this vacuum is a cesspool of memes, whether walls or quick fix housing gimmicks. The generic narrative has replaced virtue and craft as architecture concepts.
While back in 2011 this source suggested there may actually be to few containers (at least of the right age, type or in right location), it put the total supply at "roughly 18.605 million units".
In terms of total # of retired units, it further notes "The average annual container disposal rate over the past decade has been approximately 5 percent of the fleet ".
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LOL - good idea?????
I've been waiting for an architecture studio to have the cohones to take this on.
Check the twitter hashtag #DOMODesigns. "Every design challenge has a final solution."
Hendrik Höfgen comes to mind.
This is the architectural equivalent of Jimmy Fallon fluffing Donald Trump's hair.
We are seeing the result of years and years of neglect by architecture's leading organizations and media figures (replaced by hacks). no accident that in this vacuum is a cesspool of memes, whether walls or quick fix housing gimmicks. The generic narrative has replaced virtue and craft as architecture concepts.
While back in 2011 this source suggested there may actually be to few containers (at least of the right age, type or in right location), it put the total supply at "roughly 18.605 million units".
In terms of total # of retired units, it further notes "The average annual container disposal rate over the past decade has been approximately 5 percent of the fleet ".
Stupid architects with stupid shipping containers
Sounds awesome; I'd live there.
pure marketing! politics is good for marketing - see Schumacher. wonder how much more money they will make this year because of this marketing stunt?
Ow ow I want to be in the funny papers. Im gonna propose a border wall that is an obstacle course like "Ultimate Ninja Warrior" so only the best can get through. It will be in all the glossy magazines.
Thats the jist of most theoretical architecture circa 2017.
and to a degree this has been done, just not as a wall, so in short this is a poorly thought-out knock-off of age old ideas that were far more refined then this joke. It's a joke architecturally without considering the politics behind it.
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