8 of the craziest proposals for Trump’s border wall

MADE Collective

This fall, the Trump administration will ask Congress to give the green light on a federal budget that includes funding for a wall along the US-Mexico border.

Not all Republican lawmakers are on board, making it more uncertain that the estimated $21.6 billion wall will become a reality. But the Trump administration is currently reviewing design bids for the project, and says it will reveal the finalists this summer.

Hundreds of construction firms, architects, and artists answered the open call for border wall proposals put out this past spring. Some are more eccentric than others, and many have additional functions beyond securing the border.

The ideas — some of which are in protest of the wall itself — range from parks to hyperloop transit systems. Here are some of the most interesting border wall proposals we’ve seen.

The pink “Prison-Wall.”

Mexican architects from Estudio 3.14, a design firm based in Guadalajara, imagined a hot pink border that stretches 1,954 miles, called the “Prison-Wall.”

The renderings are meant to show the impracticality of building the wall, designer Norberto Miranda told Business Insider. He says the border wouldn’t foster positive relations with Mexico, and the country’s rolling mountain ranges would make construction difficult.

The designers imagined a pink wall, since Trump has said it should be “beautiful.” It would include a prison for immigrants, holding up to “11 million people who Trump plans to deport,” Miranda said.

A monorail wall with a mall.

A proposal from the National Consulting Service (NCS) calls for a wall with a monorail, which would travel along the 1,900-mile-long border, and a mall.

The National City, California-based firm said the transit system would help revitalize cities on both sides of the border, because the US and Mexico would share profits from transportation fares, according to the LA Times.

“The NCS Team believes the basis of our wall design concept to be a win-win for all; from US National Security, infrastructure, expanded commerce, transport, energy and cost savings efficiencies, and a the US-Mexico build partnership,” the proposal’s technical summary reads.

 

A hyperloop wall powered by solar farms.

A group of Mexican and American engineers and urban planners called MADE Collective want to build a $1 trillion hyperloop transportation network as the border wall.

The plan would turn the border into a shared nation, called Otra Nation, with an independent local government and nonvoting representatives in the US and Mexican legislatures, the group told BI.

It would feature several solar farms to power the hyperloop. The designers said an equal number of Americans and Mexicans would build the system.

A one-way plexiglass wall.

PennaGroup, a construction firm in Fort Worth, Texas, imagines a wall made of wire and a one-way sheet of plexiglass.

According to PennaGroup’s summary of the design, the wall would work like a one-way mirror. People on the US side would be able to see through, but those on the Mexico side would not.

The company interviewed dozens of US Border Patrol agents to understand their jobs and what kind of characteristics they would want for a wall. PennaGroup then designed one that’s tall, can drain rainwater, has mechanized doors for vehicles, and is hard to climb, tunnel under, or tamper with. 

“The wall was designed with Neoclassical architecture influences encompassing the styles of federal and Greek Revival architecture that were a major influence during the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Washington, DC,” the summary reads.

 

A park shared by Mexico and the US.

Instead of a wall, three New York City-based designers are proposing a bi-national park.

The designers, Wesley Thompson, Hiroshi Kaneko, and Josie Baldner, won second place in the international design competition “Building the Border Wall.” The jury, made up of architects and artists, asked for “bold humanitarian solutions, creativity, and innovation to bear on alternative ideas of a border wall.”

People from both sides would be able to hike and camp in the nature reserve, Thompson told Business Insider. The national park services from the US and Mexico would maintain the area equally, and both countries would generate money from visitors like any other national park. 

“It would only make sense to have both the US and Mexico invest in something together,” the designers said. “It’s a shared resource with shared benefits and ownership. Ultimately, we believe mutual cooperation can destigmatize the border, promoting communication, and a greater respect for each country.”

A wall that traps nuclear waste.

This plan by Pittsburgh-based Clayton Industries features a chain-link fence with a 100-foot-deep trench that would store municipal, medical and nuclear waste. It would stretch 30 feet high and also include a railroad, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The facility that connects to the wall would convert the waste into electricity.

 

A wall made of 3 million hammocks.

JM Design Studio, a Pittsburgh-based artist collective, submitted six designs to the Trump administration. One is a “wall” made of 3 million hammocks strung together by western white pine trees.

Anyone would be able to lounge in the hammocks, Jennifer Meridian, the artist who led the design, told Business Insider. The trees, which would be planted along the border, would each stretch 30 feet tall.

The other designs by the Studio include walls made of 10 million pipe organs, lighthouses, and gravestones that mark the lives of migrants who died trying to cross the border.

JM Design Studio is looking to build prototypes of the hammock wall and the pipe organ wall in California’s San Diego desert, located just north of the border with Tijuana, Mexico. In the coming weeks, the team will launch a crowdfunding campaign to make the designs a reality.

A wall that generates solar power.

Gleason Partners LLC, a Las Vegas-based architecture firm, submitted a proposal to the Department of Homeland Security that includes solar panels.

The wall would generate enough power to pay for its construction in under 20 years, Gleason told BI. (Other energy experts have estimated it would take much longer, because many parts of the border are obstructed and unsuitable for solar arrays.)

A solar wall might not be totally out of the question. In early June, President Trump himself pitched Republican leaders on a proposal to cover the wall with PVs.

“Our intent is to offer a realistic, no-nonsense design for the wall that pays for itself that will make everybody happy, including our president,” Gleason said.

Read more stories on Business Insider, Malaysian edition of the world’s fastest-growing business and technology news website.

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