Booths and Borders: Designing Community Through Co-Living and Comfort Food

Meg Cuca // Advisor: Sequoyah Hunter-Cuyjet

Booths and Borders: Designing Community Through Co-Living and Comfort Food

This thesis explores the recent rise of American immigration to Mexico City. In response to shifting housing access and cultural displacement, this thesis proposes a transitional co-living space that supports both incoming American immigrants and Mexican locals through intentional community building. Drawing on J. Macgregor Wise’s concept of territorialization through habit, the project considers how built space can help new American immigrants establish routines, maintain identity, and develop a sense of belonging in a new cultural context. This space features rent-controlled units for locals and an American-style diner, designed to foster a shared experience, cultural exchange, and mutual respect. Food plays a central role as a familiar anchor and a tool for connection—bridging memory and place, and creating opportunities for interaction between residents and the wider community. Booths and Borders reimagines migration not as isolation, but as an opportunity to build lasting, place-based community.