Author Nishat Awan Lecturer in Architecture, University of She!eld Academic rigour, journalistic flair The real issue with the barmy design ideas for Trump’s border wall April 19, 2017 10.07am BST Trump promised his supporters a “big and beautiful” wall. Accordingly, the recent design competition required it, among other things, to look good – from the US side. Yet it seems unlikely that the wall will ever be completed. The areas where US border security deemed a physical barrier necessary and viable have already been built. The remaining sections of the border feature formidable natural barriers where countless innocent people have lost their lives. The wall brings to mind another seemingly impossible engineering feat from the realm of science fiction. In the concluding novel of Cixun Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, humanity is forced to devise an extreme plan to save itself from higher intelligence beings. One option is to create a “cosmic safety notice” by transforming the Solar System into a reduced light speed black hole. The idea being that if you cannot reach the speed of light, you cannot attack others and are therefore not a risk. The Black Domain is essentially a prison that humanity would enter into voluntarily in order to keep itself safe. The story offers ways of thinking about the current spate of border wall building: the US version is only the best-known example. India, too, is proudly declaring the impending fulfilment of its ambition to completely seal its borders with two of its neighbours. Pakistan, Iran and Hungary are also busy building barriers. The competition Just as the Black Domain was constructed to keep humanity in, so it Otra Nation April 19, 2017 10.07am BST The real issue with the barmy design ideas for Trump’s border wall The real issue with the barmy design ideas for Trump's border wall https://theconversation.com/the-real-issue-with-the-barmy-design... 1 of 5 23/12/2018, 10:24