CAPLA, Rancho Feliz build a brighter future at the U.S. border

Bob Vint, assistant professor of practice in the School of Architecture, dedicated his time and skills to design La Hacienda Feliz, a volunteer dormitory for the Rancho Feliz Charitable Foundation. 

The project is located in Agua Prieta, a small community near Douglas, Arizona, on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Vint’s collaboration with Rancho Feliz began in 2020 after Jerry Dixon, the developer of Tucson’s Mercado District, recommended him to Gil Gillenwater, the foundation’s founder. 

“There’s a lesson here for young architects—one project leads to another,” Vint said. “Ironically, working for a well-to-do, for-profit client led me to designing for a nonprofit organization that benefits the underserved.”

Vint worked closely with Agua Prieta architect Luis López Escárcega and the construction company Desarollos Constructivos de Sonora to design the traditional courtyard building, complete with a covered outdoor walkway. 

His contributions included developing the roof form and framing system. The dormitory’s design reflects a deep respect for traditional aesthetics, incorporating natural materials such as heavy timber trusses, wood decking and terracotta tile. 

Born near the border, Vint’s ties to Mexican culture and history run deep. His first visit to Mexico, at age five, left a lasting impression. 

“Both the beauty of Mexican culture and the signs of stark inequality, the divide of wealth and poverty, stayed with me,” he said. 

Fluent in Spanish, Vint has traveled extensively across Mexico, visiting 20 of its 31 states, from the northern regions of Sonora and Chihuahua to the southern border of Chiapas. 

“I realize that I've visited more states in Mexico than in the U.S.,” he said.

Vint’s commitment to giving back to Mexican communities stretches back decades. In the late 1980s, he supported colonias, or informal settlements, in Nogales, Sonora by delivering warm clothing and building materials. 

He also designed a community center for Los Tápiros in 1993, and helped save a landmark sculpture in Nogales in 2008.

“In each of these endeavors I donated my professional time,” Vint said.

Students in Vint’s Arid Region Urbanism seminar experienced the realities of life along the border during an overnight field trip to Agua Prieta. 

They visited a colonia where Rancho Feliz builds homes and met residents and helped distribute groceries to families in need. A highlight of the trip was meeting a single mother raising three children and touring their 400-square-foot house. 

Steven Burkett, a student in the master of architecture program, reflected on the experience.  

“Agua Prieta was an eye opening experience of how the world truly works south of the U.S. border,” he said. “You need to experience it to understand the weight of what’s happening.”

He also took a moment to share what he learned about architecture and planning.

“It’s interesting to see the expression of a place that does not have zoning laws in the area,” said Burkett. “When we were driving down the street it would go from a factory, to a convenience store, to homes, to cigarette stores and back to a factory in less than 200 feet.”

The group also explored Agua Prieta’s central plaza and notable works of contemporary architecture by Fernanda Canales, including the Ba-Chicui Library and a community sports complex. Their stay at La Hacienda Feliz featured a carne asada dinner with mariachi music, immersing the students in border culture.

Rancho Feliz aims to improve living conditions for border communities while educating visitors about systemic poverty and inequality. 

“Children are born every day into extreme poverty in the colonias along the U.S.-Mexico border - if they were born just a couple miles further north, their lives and opportunities would be completely different,” Vint said. “Understanding and appreciating this will inform our perspective on the border issue, and how fortunate those of us who were born into different circumstances truly are.”

For Burkett, the trip underscored the importance of using one’s skills to help others. 

“What I take for granted on an everyday basis, someone else is struggling to find,” he said. “If helping someone in that level of need does not shake you to your core, it would make me question what would.”