In May 2023, Mexicali-based architecture studios Veintedoce (Ángel Verduzco and Beatriz Villegas) and Localista (Giancarlo Reyes) were commissioned to conceive a pavilion at El Sitio, the site of the builder’s yard of the Mexicali Experiment, to host a three-day event of conversations, film screenings, and community gatherings. Drawing on Alexander’s book A Pattern Language (1977), the architects selected seven out of the 253 patterns in the book to encourage a series of social situations and interactions: sitting, resting, watching, feeling the breeze, being amazed, sharing, listening, dancing, daydreaming, sleeping, or eating. The outdoor wooden pavilion included a long central table that was used by speakers and audience alike; a multi-scale modular forum; and a yellow awning to shelter participants from the intensity of Mexicali’s sun. The pavilion is now part of the state university’s Faculty of Design and Architecture, UABC.

The seven patterns selected from A Pattern Language:

94 SLEEPING OUTDOORS It is a mark of success in a park, public lobby or a porch, when people can come there and fall asleep.

106 POSITIVE OUTDOOR SPACE

Make all the outdoor spaces which surround and lie between your buildings positive.

119 ARCADES Arcades—covered walkways at the edge of buildings, which are partly inside, partly outside— play a vital role in the way that people interact with buildings.

171 TREE PLACES Shape the nearby buildings in response to trees, so that the trees themselves, and the trees and buildings together, form places which people can use.

176 GARDEN SEAT Somewhere in every garden, there must be at least one spot, a quiet garden seat in which a person—or two people—can reach into themselves and be in touch with nothing else but nature.

243 FRONT DOOR BENCH People like to watch the street.

244 CANVAS ROOF There is a very special beauty about tents and canvas awnings. The canvas has a softness, a suppleness, which is in harmony with wind and light and sun.