What if the architecture of the future was fluid, organic and infused with an enhanced connection to the Earth? IK LAB, a new open-air art gallery in Tulum, Mexico, gives us a glimpse of what that could look like. Founded by Santiago Rumney Guggenheim and designed by Jorge Eduardo Neira Serkel, IK LAB is envisioned as a new way to approach gallery spaces, allowing the character of the setting to interplay with art rather than isolating it in a blank white cube. That way, the art almost takes on a new life anywhere it’s displayed, shifting slightly in dialogue with its surroundings instead of remaining static.

Located on the Azulik eco resort amidst natural villas made of the same native bejuco vines, IK LAB almost looks like something an animal would have created, full of natural shapes seemingly inspired by leaves and flower petals. The vines are woven into slatted walls arching up to form a dome-like structure, and large circular openings reveal views of the jungle outside. The cement is intentionally acoustic, producing echoes of the activity inside to make sound a part of the experience. Visitors are encouraged to take off their shoes to experience the textures of the space with their skin.

Now through September, the gallery hosts a show called ALIGNMENTS featuring work by Artur Lescher, Margo Trushina and Tatiana Trouve. The sculptural pieces included in the show are suspended throughout the space, intended to “explore the human journey through both physical and metaphysical realms.”

“Through its environmentally conscious design, a bespoke circle of artists and avant-garde residency program, IK LAB aspires to provide a framework for the world’s finest creative minds to interact with the gallery’s visionary architecture,” states the gallery’s website. “It captures the quintessence of the Yucatan peninsula’s abundant nature and rich spiritual heritage to project it into a new future as an inspiration and model for communities beyond.”

“The savvy combination of ancestral knowledge, technological innovation, applied sustainability, lived spirituality and collective experiences will culminate in new ways of creating and experiencing art as token of the potential of human evolution and vision.”

At one small point on the United States-Mexico border, where two towns named Tecate are separated by a fence, residents of both countries sat down to the same picnic at a gigantic table printed with ‘The Eyes of the Dreamer.’ This new event, held on October 8th, comes just weeks after the artist rolled out a massive 65-foot-tall photographic installation of a toddler peering over the fence from the Mexico side.

Thanks to all the daydreamers that joined us yesterday ? #PicNicAtTheBorder pic.twitter.com/Y2H1ZJOf4w

— JR (@JRart) October 9, 2017

“GIANT PICNIC at the border today in Tecate … people eating the same food, sharing the same water, enjoying the same music (half of the band on each side) around the eye of a dreamer … we forgot the wall for a minute …” says JR in a Facebook post.

Amazing souvenir of the picnic at the border … @chopemdownfilms pic.twitter.com/pCL0iHkh5E

— JR (@JRart) October 11, 2017

Picnic-goers sat down to the same meal at one big table for the single-day installation, which was apparently pulled off with the help of a sympathetic border guard. A band played, with some of its members sitting on the U.S. side and others on the Mexico side.

I often found an « angel » that helped us make the impossible possible … The picnic today was clearly forbidden and yet possible… pic.twitter.com/YzjJ4fatfH

— JR (@JRart) October 9, 2017

JR is well known for these black-and-white photographic installations, which are put up all over the world, often without official permission. The subjects of his portraits are usually everyday people who live in the area. The TED Prize winner says he aims to use art to “turn the world inside out.”

It rains more in Berlin than it does in England, especially during the cold and dreary months of winter, so enticing Germans to vacation in Mexico with a cloud that literally rains tequila is probably pretty effective. And this isn’t just a cloud-shaped installation that pours a mist of tequila out of a showerhead or something equally predictable – it’s a real cloud of tequila condensation that turns liquid in response to vibration, timed to coincide with real-life rain outside.

United States-based creative agency LAPIZ teamed up wit the Mexico Tourism Board to create an ad specifically tailored to boost German tourism to the sunny, margarita-soaked nation. Installed in Urban Spree, a Berlin art gallery, the project mimics the look of natural clouds by containing condensation within a cumulus-shaped sculpture. You can see the mist rolling off the cloud in Instagram videos of the installation.

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A flash of lightning heralds an oncoming tequila storm, and onlookers gather to hold a shot glass under the cloud. It’s the third year in a row that Lapiz teamed up with the tourism board to get Germans to Mexico, and it seems certain that this would be their most successful effort yet. Who doesn’t like free tequila? “This time, we combined the Mexican thing Germans love most, tequila, with the type of weather they like the least, rain, and created the Tequila Cloud,” they explain.

Donald Trump has promised that if he becomes President of the United States, he’ll build a “beautiful and impenetrable” wall and force Mexico to pay for it – so a group of Mexican architects have taken on the task of designing it for him, too. The firm Estudio 3.14 has envisioned the “gorgeous perversity” of the proposal in a vibrant shade of neon pink, a solid architectural ribbon running from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and packed full of prisons.

“I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively,” Trump said during his candidacy announcement speech in June 2015. “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.”

Estudio 3.14 presents a series of renderings of the structure in the various types of border landscapes one finds along that 1,954-mile stretch. The wall is painted pink in honor of Pritzker Prize-winning Mexican architect Luis Barragán. To understand exactly what the architects are getting at with this project, it’s best to hear it described in their own words.

“Based on Trump’s statements, the economic, ecological and financial aspects have been called into question. However, he continues with his verbal plan. As architects and designers, we have the capacity to imagine and interpret what Trump is saying, and we are convinced that if we can make people see it, they can assess his words and the perversity in his proposal.”

“Because the wall has to be beautiful, it has been inspired in by Luis Barragán’s pink walls that are emblematic of Mexico. It also takes advantage of the tradition in architecture of megalomaniac wall building. Moreover, the wall is not only a wall – as you can see in the hill landscape cross-section it is a prison where 11 million undocumented people will be processed, classified, indoctrinated, and/or deported.”

“The relation between the discipline of architecture and political perversity and/or megalomania has already been seen through previous characters such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, who relied on the imaginative architects of their words and the creators, who materialized their macabre ideas. The proposal is made from the disciplinary field that has worked, since the existence of humanity, for the status quo and benefits from this tradition.”

Stairs spiral up to the sky in strange configurations, going nowhere, in a tangle of surrealist sculptural structures in a Mexican jungle. Why is this series of concrete wonders hidden within the lush vegetation of Xilitlha, and who put it there? The answer lies within the mind of Edward James, a 20th century art collector described by Salvador Dali as “crazier than all the Surrealists together.” If Dali is calling you crazy, that probably says something, and photos of James’ creations reveal a visionary thinker on par with the artists he so admired.

James, a poet and well-to-do heir who was once painted by René Magritte, was a passionate and early supporter of Surrealism, sponsoring Salvador Dali in a crucial early period of his career during which he produced some of his most valuable works. A 1978 documentary called “The Secret Life of Edward James” shows off some of his personal art collection, as well as his quirky refurbishment of Monkton House, a small 20th century house plastered with surreal interior designs. He was certainly an interesting character, which explains how Las Pozas came about.

Built more than 2,000 feet above sea level about seven hours (drive) north of Mexico City, ‘Las Pozas’ was named for the natural pools and waterfalls that characterize the site. James saw it as the ideal romantic spot for his vision of a “Garden of Eden set up.” Between 1949 and 1984, he built dozens of towering concrete structures around the pools, each of them given names like “The House on Three Floors Which Will in Fact Have Five or Four or Six,” and “The House with a Roof Like a Whale.”

The sculptures were conceived by James and his guide Plutarco Gastélum, who helped him scout the site, after his living orchid garden decades in the making was destroyed by a blizzard. The concrete ‘flowers’ would be everlasting, much hardier than anything organic he could grow. It took a crew of about 150 people to build them all. It cost more than $5 million to construct, a sum James raised by selling his collection of Surrealist art at auction.

After James’ death in 1984, Las Pozas was opened to the public, and it’s know owned by Fondo Xilitlha, a foundation overseeing its preservation and restoration.

Top photo: Wikimedia Commons; all other photos: Victor DeLaqua, Julia Faveri and Herbert Loureiro/ArchDaily