Top Down / Bottom Up

This publication assembles the urban research and projects of Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman over the last decade, forwarding the Tijuana-San Diego border region as a global laboratory for engaging the central challenges of urbanization today. The projects presented here engage urban and political conflict as a creative tool, and demonstrate the capacity of architecture and design to confront exclusion and homogenization in the city, and propose alternative strategies for more inclusive urban development. Situating itself at the intersection of architecture, art, urbanization, borders, civic engagement and political theory, Top Down / Bottom Up urges us to intervene into the contested space between public and private interests, mediate interfaces between top-down and bottom-up urban dynamics, and design political and civic processes to mobilize a new public imagination.