Fire Lookout: A Space for Viewing, 2021.
Once ubiquitous throughout the American landscape, fire towers have largely faded into antiquity due to evolving methods of wildfire suppression and technological advancement. an individual’s commitment to observation and monastic routine is now largely rendered obsolete
If analog observation is no longer relevant, what becomes the formal role of the tower and of its occupants? What are the implications, social and environmental, of constructing architecture in the wild?
With these questions in mind I have reoriented the fire lookout tower into a public structure; a winding pavilion with a simple architectural system to express both its physical precariousness and temporal fragility. A series of vertical fins loosely define space while generating a rhythmic and illusory visual experience.
This is not a structure intended for a solitary human in the vastness of the will but is instead a reclamation of wildland architecture for the enjoyment of all.
The material and formal language emulates wilderness exploration, resulting in an illogical collision of form to highlight the unstable relationship between mankind and the wild.