From the days of the Spanish Missions, the waters of the Rio Grande downstream of El Paso have been harvested by flood irrigation to create rich farmland from the harsh Chihuahuan desert.  Over centuries a Nile-like green swath has grown to extend more than fifty miles to the southeast of El Paso / Juarez bi-national metropolis.  In the middle of this artificial but productive eco-zone, this new LEED Gold Port of Entry returns 117 acres of this farmland back to its desert origins. The irrigation water that greens productive fields all around the site is too precious to support landscape for imagery or momentary respite. The water-conscious design creates a vest-pocket desert micro-ecology within the immediate region?s green agricultural context, which in turn resides within a vast desert that reaches for hundreds of miles into both Mexico and the US.  This dichotomy, layering and sequential experience of passage - born of water and its scarcity - inspires the spirit of place at the Tornillo Port of Entry.  
© Craig Blackmon

Architects: Richter Architects

Location: Fabens, TX, United States

Architect In Charge: David Richter, Faia; Elizabeth Chu Richter, FAIA; Stephen Cox, AIA

Area: 41000.0 ft2

Project Year: 2015

Photographs: Craig Blackmon, David Richter

Structural & Civil: Walter P. Moore-Structural Engineers

Mep: Goetting And Associates - Mep Engineers

Landscape: Doug ...