OFFICE 15

The pedestrian border crossing between Mexico and the US is a massive rectangular volume set in the barren landscape of Anapra. Enclosed by a 9 metre high adobe wall, this neutral territory interrupts the endless fence of the demarcated boundary, serving as a bureaucratic waiting gap between the exit from one country and the entrance to the other. Within its walls a dense regular grid of palm trees, fed by a system of irrigation channels, creates an oasis-like garden – a contained and precise cultivated space, opposed to its sprawling surroundings. Four glazed pavilions with solar panel roofs are placed almost symmetrically in the plan – two of them are checkpoints with passport control, customs and administrative offices, while the other two accommodate a library and conference rooms. Like a model of an earthly paradise, this interior garden provides a certain comfort on the way to the promised land, or reflection on the desire for it.