Architecture

Bids to be sought for Trump's border wall

The wall between the Mexico and US border, if it gets built, will be controversial politically but a mighty feat of engineering nonetheless
The wall between the Mexico and US border, if it gets built, will be controversial politically but a mighty feat of engineering nonetheless

We've covered some controversial architecture projects in the past, but perhaps none more so than this: the wall being proposed by Donald Trump to be built along the southern border between the United States and Mexico. The US Department of Homeland Security has recently announced their intention to begin receiving concepts for the project in the next week.

The announcement was made on FedBizOpps.gov, a US government website reserved for posting governmental business opportunities available to the private sector. The pre-announcement of the bidding process was posted on February 24.

"The Dept. of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) intends on issuing a solicitation in electronic format on or about March 6, 2017 for the design and build of several prototype wall structures in the vicinity of the United States border with Mexico," states the presolicitation.

The notice goes on to say that the bidding process will be handled in two phases. In the first, bidders will be required to submit concept papers describing their prototypes by March 10. That list is to be whittled down in ten days, with the finalists notified on March 20. Members of that group then have four days to respond to the full request for proposal (RFP) including the cost to execute their construction.

"Multiple awards are contemplated by mid-April for this effort," says the notice. "An option for additional miles may be included in each contract award."

Thus far, over 200 companies have indicated their interest in participating in the bidding process, including 39 self-identified minority-owned businesses. Several solar companies are also in the mix, so it might be possible that some of the designs will incorporate renewable ways to light the structure, although whether or not they'll make it into the final mix is debatable, given the Trump administration's lack of focus on such priorities. Defense-contractor Raytheon is also on the list.

While this project is undoubtedly politically charged, it will certainly also be compelling and complicated from an architectural standpoint considering that the border between the United States and Mexico stretches for 1,900 miles over a variety of terrain. New Atlas will provide more details from the architectural and engineering perspectives as, and if, the project develops.

Source: FedBizOpps.gov

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Flipboard
  • LinkedIn
15 comments
Derek Howe
Awesome. Love having a businessman being President. I'm looking forward to seeing the designs. Hopefully it's tall and strong and deep where it needs to be, and a camera tower every half-mile or so where it doesn't.
BeWalt
So totally awesome. A "businessman" who has run so many businesses into the ground, why not hand him the entire country now. The wall's got to be high enough to stop all the planes that half of the illegal immigrants *actually* arrive in (if only there was an entity capable of reading statistics in this government) and hey yess! let's add lots of towers to make sure we compare favorably with other such marvelous structures. The Soviet Union's iron curtain comes to mind.
Bob Flint
"The Made in America Great Wall" 50 feet high, 30 feet thick, and impenetrable from sea to shiny sea.....
Milton
Can I bid on creating the tall collapsible ladders? or the rope?
This project is such an expensive joke. You could just fly into the USA legally and overstay your visit.
Derek Howe
A nation has to protect it's borders and uphold the law. Which is something this country has long forgotten about. Here's what I would do: Everyone who legally enters gets a visa, that visa should have a gps chip in it, so they can be tracked, and if they overstay their visa's, they can easily be found & deported. Everyone who overstays ans gets deported should have a 10 year "no-entry" on their name, so they can't just come right back in next week. Anyone who destroys or throws away their visa card, gets put into a registry of criminals who need to be deported. Illegals wouldn't be flooding in if we didn't have jobs for them, so to make sure companies are doing background checks on their employees, make a 10,000 dollar fine per illegal caught working for you. I would also build a wall, 30' high, 20' deep, several feet thick of high strength concrete. Some area's don't need a wall, like some desert portions, for those I would install a camera tower network, every half mile, equipped with high resolution & thermal imaging camera's. Have trucks tow a ground penetrating radar trailer and makes passes along the border, to find & then destroy tunnels.
Biotechz
@Derek, I'm really confused by people enamored with building this wall. First of all, we already have an extensive wall on most of our southern border and those specific places where we don't, we have a river and/or thousands of border patrol agents. So from a strategic standpoint this wall is redundant and a complete waste of money.
And then if we look at this wall from an ethical and moral point of view, it's just wrong. Theres really no justification other than xenophobia, a serious inferiority complex and/or outright hate, especially considering we're pretty much all immigrants or descended from them and at one time faced the same hate and discrimination that is now being levied against undocumented immigrants.
Why do certain pockets of people in the US fear undocumented immigrants so much? I mean, what they should be fearing is the quickly approaching sunset of their economic prospects because they're unwilling to do one of the following to improve their situation: work harder, move somewhere that has better job prospects, get a better education to make themselves more appealing to today's job market, use any number of federal/state programs to improve their situation, or just plain sit down with an undocumented immigrant and ask how they can emulate their success in climbing the socio- economic ladder.
In the end here's what it all boils down to, IMO: If you think the only way to safeguard your position in American society is to build a wall to keep out those who yearn for a better life, then you've already lost a significant chunk of what it means to be American. And all for a meanspirited and redundant wall.
LarryWolf
Build it and they will come. And come. And come some more. Digging under it. Leaping over it. Flying over it. Blasting through it. It's inevitable as it is necessary. America as we knEw it is doomed.
Biotechz
@BeWalt, @Milton, @LarryWolf: Agreed! And I'll see you all at the March for Science on April 22nd 😎
PeterBrandt
Insane waste of money ! What about removing the incentive to come? No auto citizenship to babies born here, no healthcare, higher min wages (hire Americans to do those jobs at higher wages ), etc. Hit the reasons why they come.
MadsUlricJensen
Ikea wiil deliver. Check out "Børder Wåll."