Commonplaces began in 2021 as a new platform within INSITE for producing long-term collaborative projects between curators, artists, and communities, working locally in specific sites and political-social contexts across the world. As part of this new platform, architects Teddy Cruz, Marcel Sánchez Prieto, Adriana Cuellar and Megan Groth, together with curator and writer Andrea Torreblanca, organized a walk/conversation with undergrad students, from San Diego and Tijuana, through emblematic projects on both sides of the border that are rooted in the notion of the public—spaces that reimagine the civic and social arena. The first stop was Living Rooms at the Border, a public space in the border neighborhood of San Ysidro, that anchors a mixed-use affordable housing project with cultural, social and economic programming.