The Mexicali Experiment in Its 1975 Context: Dorit Fromm, Peter Bosselmann, moderated by Felipe Orensanz.

Dorit Fromm and Peter Bosselmann were part of the core group of students from UC Berkeley who joined Christopher Alexander in developing the Mexicali Experimental Project in 1975-76. They were also the first to write and reflect on the project in key texts like Das Mexicali Experiment (Baumeister, 1978) and Seven Years Later: Mexicali Revisited (Places Journal, 1984). In their presentation —The Mexicali Experiment in its 1975 Context— they shared their experience working on the project and reflected on its lasting influence.

Transborder Living in Transborder Territories: Jessica Sevilla (UABC), Juliana Maxim (USD), moderated by Marcel Sánchez Prieto. On Habitat Production on the Southern Side of the Border and the Colorado River Delta Region

Sevilla Sevilla presented a series of case studies on the relationships between urbanization, habitat production in Mexicali, and the remaining bodies of water in the delta region of the Colorado River, where the city is located. Her presentation addresses the tensions between bordering processes that shape this territory and the fissures that emerge through poetic practices that fictionalize and imagine the memory and future of the region’s ecosystem relationships.

Juliana Maxim talked about the history of the trailer camp in California’s agricultural communities, and its spread as a housing type in the 1970s in response to the farm labor movement. She uses the example of farm labor housing during and after the Bracero program as an example of the way in which architecture can be read as the material consequence of political decisions, and as an attempt to map the consequences of macroeconomic policies onto the built environment.