Local design studio Heleo and Tijuana artist Daniel Ruanova have created a pavilion in San Diego meant to symbolise a twisting together of the walls on the US-Mexico border to form a space for gathering.
Called Exchange Pavilion, it was erected in Balboa Park as part of the World Design Capital activations, which celebrate art and design in San Diego and Tijuana ? the first time the international NGO World Design Organization has selected joint cities for the designation.
Heleo took the international, cross-border designation and used that as the driving principle for the pavilion in the plaza.
Heleo and Daniel Ruanova have created a pavilion in San Diego's Balboa Park
The pavilion is 16 feet tall (4.9 metres) at its tallest point and consists of a steel structure covered with orange polycarbonate panels that twist to form the walls and ceilings of the structure. Most of it was fabricated in Tijuana and shipped across the border. Heleo co-founder Carlos E Hernandez said that the studio and Ruanova wanted to use "democratic" materials in the construction.
He said that the two materials that form the structure, steel and corrugated plastic, were meant to represent the two border walls and that the no man's land between the borders was reconceptualised as a place for gathering in the pavilion.
It was constructed using steel and polycarbonate panels
"It was a very simple gesture, taking these two walls that are bent together, and the corrugation on the material c...