Estudio 3.14, a Guadalajara-based architectural firm, submitted a design of a hot pink wall with a built-in immigrant prison and a shopping mall to the Donald Trump administration’s border wall design contest. Hundreds of submissions from architects, developers, and construction companies from all around the world were sent this spring to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agency.
Border Patrol decided to construct eight prototypes of how the wall might look like, which are now standing near the US-Mexico border in San Diego, California. Not all of the proposals sent in were serious, though, with Estudio 3.14’s design “Prison-Wall” highlighting the impracticality of a wall.
Positive relationships with Mexico will be difficult to foster after the wall is built. The estimated cost of the wall is anywhere from $15 billion to $25 billion just to build it, plus $2.1 billion a year to pay border-patrol agents and to maintain it once it’s built, according to CNBC’s Kate Drew.
Its estimated cost is one no-one really is willing to pay for, with Mexican President, Enrique Peña Nieto, stating that his country will never cough the money up. Not to mention how the mountainous terrain would make construction difficult.
The wall is a project that seems ridiculous to many and if it gets built, it would become one of the largest architectural projects in modern American history. Since Trump repeatedly voiced his wish for the wall to be “beautiful,” the designers envisioned a hot pink wall.
They inspired their work on Luis Barragán, a renowned Mexican architect known for his use of bright colors and blunt, stucco walls. Stretching all the way from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Coast, the wall would obviously include a prison for the 11 million people that Trump plans to deport.
The prison would be equipped with high-security cells and tunnel entrances, a hospital, and areas to watch the prisoners. Their manufacturing plan includes the idea to have immigrant prisoners maintain the wall, as well.
And how could any architectural project consider itself to be complete without a built-in American shopping mall? The mountain ranges and arid climate in the area make building the wall nearly impossible, physically challenging, and would take 16 years to build.
This proposed divider is a “megalomaniac’s architectural proposal,” designer Norberto Miranda states.
This article was inspired by BUSINESS INSIDER // Mexican designers envision a Trump border wall that could take 16 years to build