BuildFest 2: Peace Rises

This fall, Build Fest 2: Peace Rises will transform the historic grounds of the 1969 Woodstock festival into an open-air showcase of wood innovation and collaborative design. As part of the 2025 Bethel Woods Art & Architecture Festival, 10 faculty-led student teams from across the U.S. will construct interactive wood installations over five days—living, working, and building on the very site where music and counterculture once reshaped a generation. Selected through a national call, the projects range from a robotically fabricated timber cabin designed by a student team from Princeton to a reconfigurable monolith designed by a team from Cornell. Additional installations will be built by teams from Rice University, Auburn University, Carnegie Mellon University, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of California Los Angeles, Kean University and University of Kentucky, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Marywood University—each exploring how wood construction can serve as a platform for social reflection and emerging architectural technologies. 

Students and professionals interested in seeing these imaginative works up close are invited to attend the public opening on Sunday, September 14, coinciding with Bethel Woods’ Harvest Festival. From 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET, visitors can explore the completed installations, meet the teams, and experience how today’s emerging architects are using wood to carry forward the spirit of Woodstock—bold, creative, and deeply connected to place.