Buildfest 2024

Event | Buildfest 2024

Bethel Woods Art & Architecture Festival Showcases 7 Interactive Outdoor Installations Built with Wood

BuildFest 2024, a main component of the Bethel Woods Art & Architecture Festival, is a unique initiative—blending a design-build competition within a festival setting— that challenges architecture students to explore the intersection of digital and analog fabrication to design and construct innovative wood-based outdoor installations.

Teams from 17 notable architecture programs submitted proposals to participate in BuildFest 2024, with seven teams selected to participate during the four-day festival.

Student teams, led by faculty, worked to blend digital and analog design and construction methods to create interactive, wood-based installations. Each project was assembled and displayed at Bethel Woods, the historic grounds of the 1969 Woodstock music festival.

Some teams designed and built their projects completely on-site during the festival, while others explored a range of prefabrication technologies ahead of the event, arriving with a kit of parts to be assembled at Bethel Woods. For all involved, BuildFest was an opportunity to collaborate, share in the learning process, and see projects through from design to completion.

Explore the seven built installations below:

Curtain Call
Project leaders: Cait McCarthy and Jordan Young
Student team: Christopher Battaglia, Helen Bennett, Micah Betz, Maddie Brockman, Cayden Brown, Patrick Fair, Varun Gandhi, Jacob Taro Gibbons, Sam Glenn, Emily Herr, Gretchen Hundertmark, Sanskruti Kakadiya, Ellie Marie Lambert, Andrea F. Olmedillo, Miles Smith, Lawson Spencer, Riley Wines
Schools: Auburn University and Syracuse University
From the project team:
“Curtain Call investigates the use of semi-automated construction methods to test the formal, spatial, and structural capacity of light wood framing. Semi-automated construction is a hybrid method that emphasizes human-robot collaboration. Rather than robotically automating the process entirely, this method allows human participants at all skill levels to easily engage in the construction process. Ultimately, this project considers alternate approaches that expand conventional modes of labor relative to the design, fabrication, and construction process.”
Timberlyn
Project leader: Arash Adel
Student team: Zoe King Man Cheung, Carlos Lantigua, Zhuofan Ma, Rimervi Mendez Vasquez, Daniel Ruan, Autumn Siedlik, Ruxin Xie
School: Princeton University
From the project team:
“Timberlyn is inspired by the historic spirit of Woodstock and epitomizes the synergy between human ingenuity and robotic precision. Crafted from the collaboration between humans and robots, this eco-conscious stage offers versatility, accommodating music performances and community events alike. The project utilizes state-of-the-art research in human-robot collaborative construction (HRCC), leveraging sustainable practices to design and fabricate a versatile structure from reclaimed dimensional lumber.”
MycoShell
Project leaders: Felix Heisel and Marta H. Wisniewska
Student team: Brenda Bai, Natasha Becker, Andrew Boghossian, Idil Derman, Eavan Flanagan, Lauren Franco, Matthew Glaysher, Edozie Onumonu, Jasper Owe, Marina Rosolem, Jeeya Savani
School: Cornell University
From the project team:
“MycoShell is an installation that exhibits the potential of biological self-growing and adaptive building materials toward a collaborative future of the digital and the analog. MycoShell is constructed of structural mycelium-bound composite panels that have been grown from a local fungal strain of the Ganoderma family on regional agricultural byproducts of corn and hemp. The result is a biobased, carbon-negative, and fully circular building component with structural capacities.”
Rise, Repeat
Project leaders: Leandro Piazzi, Michael Stradley, and Claire Eileen Moriarty
Student team: Chantal Celis, Eric Diaz, Camilla Dominguez, Owen Lawler, Zonglin Li, Isaiah Mercer, Isabel Montes, Eben Negro, Preston Kwok, Katie Soule, Marcy Sushynski, Gunnar Thuss, Emily Zheng
School: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
From the project team:
“The [Rise, Repeat] pavilion makes use of three off-the-shelf elements commonplace in everyday American domestic construction: (1) pressure-treated, pine stair stringers, (2) precast concrete deck footings, and (3) stainless-steel, star-drive deck screws. The repetition of uniform, pre-fabricated elements allows for an economical budget and ease/speed of assembly in the field. Stringer elements are joined mechanically with screws, without the need to cut or modify the elements and without using adhesives or coatings. This light-touch construction method allows for a strategy of disassembly and re-use, considering the full life cycle of the pavilion’s materials.”
The Pen
Project leaders: Kate Johnson, Fabiano Sarra, Isabella Trindade, and Kelly Wilton
Student team: Parker Dubiel, Luke Genter, Noah Gill, Rachel How, Julia Kress, Courtney Lougheed, Leah Rosen, Bennett Sarowitz, Aiden Spicer, Kimberly Tana, Janelle Teesedale, Jaydon Thompson, Cynthia Wang
School: Rochester Institute of Technology
From the project team:
“The Pen is a 36-sided tridecahexagonal cylinder made from recycled materials, emerging from the ground as a multifaceted sculptural form. The structure serves as a submerged seating area, inviting engagement from visitors while visually aligning with a second adjacent 36-sided platform across the field. The distant deck functions as a stage, creating a dynamic interplay between the two elements. Together, these geometric forms redefine the landscape, offering a space for gathering, performance, and reflection, all within an environmentally conscious framework that reuses discarded materials.”
Blocks
Project leaders: Galo Canizares, Fabio Castellanos, and Stephanie Sang Delgado
Student team: Stephan Argant, Emily Benavides, Kamila Diaz Calderon, Jason Morgan, Rahul Pasumarti, Emma Sanabria, Vanessa Vallejo, Kacper Wilczynski, Cameron Zotti
School: Kean University
From the project team:
“Blocks is a modular furniture series designed to create an interactive and playful seating area for the Harvest Festival. Comprised of three components: an L-shaped bench, an L-shaped 6 step, and movable cubes, the project creates an engaging landscape that charges the user with defining its boundaries. The benches and steps are spread across the area to create different interaction zones, while the movable cubes can be stacked, moved, rotated, and shifted for individual needs. The movable cubes are clad on two sides with an alternating system of wood tiles and custom HDPE tiles.”
Spring/Summer 24
Project leader: Martin Hitch
Student team: Alan Almanza, Marisol Hernandez Castro, Tayoni Jordan, Joseph Peace, Rebecca Van Orden, Gabe Vinz, Maryssa Wentworth
School: Arizona State University
From the project team:
“Spring/Summer 24 intertwines the vibrant essence of Woodstock fashion with cutting-edge architectural practices. It serves as an homage to the freedom, rebellion, and connection to nature emblematic of Woodstock’s iconic style while pioneering the utilization of textiles as a primary architectural element. The proposal celebrates the versatility of textiles, drawing inspiration directly from the diverse array of materials, patterns, and styles that defined the clothing of the Woodstock generation. By embracing textiles as the fundamental building block, our installation transcends conventional architectural norms, mirroring the boundary-defying spirit of Woodstock.”