Living on the edge: Sustainability along the Texas-Mexico border

Mitchell is the 2026 chair of the Committee on the Environment. This article is part of a series that she hopes will bring more voices to the sustainability conversation. See the sidebar for other entries.

Few places are as misunderstood as the region along the Rio Grande River, which is the dividing line between Texas and Mexico. I’ll admit that, even as a native Texan, my actual experience here is limited to vacationing in the remote mountains of Big Bend National Park combined with childhood memories of crossing into Nuevo Laredo on day trips, back when border crossings were easy. Today, those memories have largely been replaced by a steady stream of headlines about illegal immigration, danger, and division.

Through conversations with architects Guillermo Cavazos, AIA, and Jesse Miller, AIA, I got a glimpse beyond the headlines. I found a region defined less by division than by exchange—of people, ideas, materials, and traditions. Cavazos and Miller represent different areas and offer different perspectives, yet in both discussions, sustainability emerged not as a movement or an ideology but as a continuous process of adapting to an unforgiving climate, increasing scarcity, and constant change.

Building with memory
Guillermo Cavazos, Cavazos Architects, Laredo, Texas

Cavazos has deep roots, both personally and professionally, in Laredo. A second-generation Mexican American, he comes from a family of architects: Both his father and brother practice in the region. Listening to him describe Laredo, you could be forgiven for concluding it is a small town. But in fact, Laredo is the nation’s largest inland port of entry and the primary commercial gateway between the U.S. and Mexico.

When I asked what sustainability looks like along the border, Cavazos spoke about architecture that has evolved over generations in response to the harsh climate. Thick masonry walls offer protection against the relentless heat. Courtyards create outdoor rooms shielded from the sun. Local clay brick, sandstone, and mesquite beams gained favor because they are available and durable. Buildings are carefully oriented to catch the prevailing breezes.

I couldn’t help but smile at his statement, “North orientation is my best friend.” It was so simple but was a bridge between my career as a sustainability expert and his lived reality as a practicing architect. Long before architects like me began modeling solar heat gain or energy performance, builders in South Texas understood that orientation mattered.

What Cavazos described wasn’t nostalgia. It was accumulated knowledge—centuries of trial and error distilled down into architecture uniquely suited to its place.

That doesn’t mean the region hasn’t changed. Cavazos spoke candidly about increasingly intense heat, prolonged periods of drought, and uncertainty around the Rio Grande as a reliable water source. He also described another kind of scarcity, which is coming from the slow disappearance of local building traditions. The greatest loss, he suggested, isn’t simply craftsmanship. It’s the gradual fading of architecture that belongs uniquely to this place.

More recently, supply chains have become less predictable, and the skilled craftspeople who have long shaped the local architecture are increasingly difficult to find. Cavazos didn’t dwell on the policies behind those changes but instead focused on what architects can control: designing thoughtfully with the resources available and drawing on generations of building knowledge that remain remarkably relevant today.

Living between systems
Jesse Miller, Megamorphosis, Brownsville, Texas

Over 200 miles away in Brownsville, Miller provided more of an outsider’s perspective. Having settled in the Rio Grande Valley a decade ago, he admits that it took him a while to adjust. I chuckled when he concluded that, “Texas in general is a strange place if you’re not from here,” then went on to describe an encounter with “a bunch of dudes with cowboy hats and rattlesnakes.”

Where the landscape shifts dramatically from Laredo’s dry scrub brush to tropical palms and coastal wetlands, Brownsville sits close to the Gulf of Mexico and has recently become known as the neighbor to SpaceX’s Starbase. Agriculture, manufacturing, and now aerospace have all brought investment into the Rio Grande Valley, yet much of the wealth generated has flowed elsewhere. Miller described it as a history of “extractive economies,” where outside industries have benefitted from the region without always investing in the communities that sustain them. That history, he believes, has fostered a healthy skepticism toward grand promises of quick fixes.

The skepticism extends to sustainability. Like Cavazos, Miller didn’t speak of an environmental movement. Rather, he focused on practical improvements that people can see and feel, like better insulation, deeper roof overhangs, and protection from the relentless wind. Those are the kinds of strategies that resonate because people can feel their benefits.

When clients understand how design decisions can improve their daily lives, they rarely object to the principles behind them. In fact, Miller told me that many clients actively seek out what we think of as resilient design–not because they are looking to be sustainable but because they want buildings that can remain comfortable when the power goes out, can stand up to increasingly intense weather, and can cost less to operate. For him, resilience is often the language that resonates more than sustainability.

Some of the most compelling examples came from his work in the colonias, which are neighborhoods that were poorly constructed by predatory developers without adequate infrastructure. There, design is not about adding sophisticated technology; it is much more basic.

Some residents explained to Miller that aluminum foil covered their windows to block the afternoon sun. Others talked about how their fruit trees and vegetable gardens were as essential to their homes as the buildings themselves. Rather than imposing design solutions, Miller’s team built upon the ingenuity that residents had already developed through necessity. The solutions weren’t imported. They were already there, waiting for someone to recognize their value.

Listening to Miller, I was struck by how often the conversation returned to uncertainty. Climate change is making extreme heat and flooding more common. Changes in trade policy, immigration enforcement, and cross-border movement ripple through the construction industry, affecting everything from material availability to the local workforce. Yet like Cavazos, Miller acknowledged that architects cannot control the forces reshaping the border.

Instead, Miller is focus on strengthening relationships with the architectural community across the river in Matamoros, Mexico. Whether it’s through speaking at each other’s conferences, visiting projects, or simply meeting for a meal, building those relationships provides stability in times when so much is out of control.

A shared perspective

Although Cavazos and Miller arrived at architecture from different directions, I was surprised by how often their perspectives converged. Neither spent much time talking about sustainability in terms of metrics and acronyms, as our profession often does. Instead, both returned repeatedly to the same ideas: understanding climate, respecting local knowledge, designing within limits, and responding thoughtfully to change.

I came into these conversations thinking the border would teach me something about politics. Instead, it taught me something about place. The most enduring sustainability strategies here came down from generations who learned to build for the climate rather than fight against it. These lessons remain just as relevant today as architects navigate new forms of environmental, economic, and political uncertainty.

Along the Texas-Mexico border, sustainability is not a movement waiting to be adopted. It’s a tradition of adaptation, refined over generations and still evolving with every new challenge.

Ellen Mitchell, AIA, is the director of sustainability & applied research at LPA Design Studios.