The Art & Architecture Festival at Bethel Woods | 2023

Veil focused on two main elements: slender vertical posts that blend into the woods and see-through curtains. The curtains can be rearranged and reconfigured to create different spaces and impromptu zones reminiscent of the camping and activities that took place along the Groovy Way during Woodstock 69.

Peace, Love, Shimmer is based on the concept of modular, ready-made, reusable building systems and temporary structures. Sited in a clearing along Groovy Way, the structure reflects the nature around it and uses an iridescent fabric to produce psychedelic effects. After its lifecycle has expired, it can be disassembled easily, and the materials can be reused in typical construction.

WoodStack draws formal and structural inspiration from the wood stacks ubiquitous to lumber yards around the world in order to achieve a vertical profile using no steel fasteners or screws. Instead, the project utilizes custom, digitally fabricated elements to align, tighten, and stabilize the structure. Furthermore, all of the wood stacked in the pavilion was collected from student projects at the Illinois Institute of Technology—providing a second use for material slated as waste and shedding light on the unseen abundance of free resources that exist all around us.

Java & Jam are thin-shell pavilions clad in bio-waste-composite materials, including spent coffee grounds and white grape pomace sourced locally in upstate New York. Construction began with the design and fabrication of a plywood lathe made flexible by a computationally generated, adaptive living-hinge pattern cut into its surface. Next, various waste byproducts were mixed with sawdust and non-toxic glues before being plastered onto the plywood, thus stabilizing the structures. Here, the project combines traditional techniques with computation tools to catalyze more sustainable economies of construction, labor, and material—themes reminiscent of the counterculture revolution of the 60s, which simultaneously sought to merge values of individualism and freedom with a utopian vision of social/environmental sustainability.

Plantar is a multi-media, site-specific installation consisting of hundreds of wooden posts hanging eighteen feet above the ground. The posts, ranging from twenty-four inches to thirty-two inches in length, are stained dark brown to blend in with the earth, while their tips are painted in bright pink to provide contrast. Walking underneath the installation, one recognizes the silhouette of a footprint directing visitors toward the path of the groovy way.

Inside Out is a room lost in the forest. The project exists as two corner conditions of a typical suburban dwelling that has been dislocated—symbolizing the depersonalization induced by the nuclear-familial living common in middle America. As visitors pass by, they are invited to step through the various thresholds framed by the fixture-less apertures of the structure: an as-built ruin of modern life.

Inner Path encourages visitors to blaze their own trail through the woods along the Groovy Way. The interconnected pyramid-shaped modules invite climbing, symbolizing life's ups and downs and the numerous possible directions individuals can choose. Visitors have the option to follow the ground path, sit and observe, or ascend to the highest platform for a scenic view. Take the Inner Path to rediscover yourself and reconnect with the original spirit of the Woodstock 1969 festival