Send my love to Tijuana -- Tijuana sends her love : the transcendental Tijuanense telecommunications bridge to everywhere

Abstract

Send My Love to Tijuana I Tijuana Sends Her Love replaces an existing pedestrian bridge that connects two vibrant neighborhoods in Tijuana, Mexico. The bridge is strategically situated to integrate itself into the city's urban fabric, while maintaining visibility from the United States Border and the San Ysidro Border crossing, the most heavily trafficked border crossing in the world. There, passage is tightly controlled, extending wait-times to unbearable lengths for even those permitted to cross legally. Nearby, my project provides an alternative portal that is universally accessible to those who wish to reconnect with their loved ones by way of another, virtual means: free videoconferencing within dedicated spaces. These spaces range in scale, beginning with the precedent of the phone booth for private, intimate conversations and ending with large-scale public projection zones for families. In either case, families and loved ones are reconnected on opposite sides of the border in a communion whose significance is witnessed by the monumental scale and form of the architectural composition. Not only is the building's form significant, its details also contribute to its monumental character. While the fagade facing the United States is a severe 900 foot-long, 40 foot-high, rectangular, corrugated steel, reflection of the existing border "fence", its symbolic severity is subtly subverted by an array of millions of end lit fiber optic cables. These cables are translucent hairs that blow in the breeze and that channel in from the fagade through the building's folded steel structure, and out into rooms, out beside walkways, and out through ceilings.

(cont.) When light activates one end of the optical cable, it illuminates on the opposite end as well. Therefore, the cable channeling system allows for daylight to penetrate the interior spaces, whereas at night, the fagade is illuminated by the internally lit building. The illumination on the fagade is an eery, abstract depiction of the activities inside, as shadows from pedestrians deactivate the cables they pass, and the family-conferencing projections activate cables that portray content on the fagade. Finally, individual lights within the personal telecommunications rooms, when in use, can also be mapped to their own zones. Thus, form and fiber optics enhance the symbolic value of the bridge, which anyway represents the human desire to connect, and directly opposes the ever impassible border wall, which is an embodiment of military might and the distinctly human desire to separate. This thesis project was inspired by my personal experiences with the family members left behind in Central and South America by their dearest relatives-children, husbands, wives-who journeyed illegally to United States in order to garner a financial foothold to support their loved ones back home.