Spring 2025
University of Colorado, Boulder | Capstone Studio
Located south of Rocky Mountain National Park, just outside of the town of Nederland, Colorado, is the locally-owned ski resort of Eldora Mountain. While this ski resort might be small-scale in comparison to its neighbors like Winter Park and Copper Mountain, it maintains large, all-encompassing sustainability goals, aspires to expand it's inclusive-sports reach as a hub for adaptive sports, and hosts adventurers of all skill-levels and adventure-types. There's nothing small about Eldora.
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In a collaboration with Eldora Mountain Resort's sustainability department, this senior capstone project aims to "celebrate snow" through the redesign of Eldora's Nordic Ski Lodge and the Lookout Lodge located on top of Eldora's highest ridge.
This capstone not only celebrates snow and the wonderous winter-season, but another integral system of Colorado's landscapes: wood, timber, and trees. In a two-week introductory project, teams paired up to conduct research about tree species and their applications in construction and design and build a wood sculpture that showcases two selected wood varieties.
The sculpture to the left highlights walnut and pine as they are manipulated in a sequence of lamination, sanding, chiseling, filing, and oiling, under the human hand.
This piece tells the story of a singular seed suspended within the sculpture, as if it was deposited in the ground. The seed germinates and transforms into a tree, a series of curves and undulations. In the case where the tree is harvested for lumber, the wood - and thus the seed - becomes lineated and manipulated under the human hand. The final role of the seed is then when the wood breaks down and is redeposited in the landscape once again, to become the foundation for new tree growth.
The ink drawing (above) is an independent study of the wood-working processes utilized in the construction of the wood sculpture.
