Case Studies

The site location, Live Oak, is an area that has very low light pollution. With the lack of locations to enjoy the night sky full of stars, this project attempts to preserve this dark night and the experience that comes with it.  

As one start walking on the trail towards the site, there is a shift from primitive open vast space created by the desert to the public exhibit area with necessary artificial light and the spaces more civilized. Once the visitors or students walk through the tunnel to get to the building, there’ s a shift from dark to light mimicking an experience that the burrowing animals may f eel around the area. However, instead of arriving under a bush, like many burrows arrive at, the tunnel leads to the residential education center embedded underground. As they continue to walk up the sloped circulation that has peeled away from the ground, the program gradually shifts to more primitive spaces, with minimal artificial light, and at the end with no artificial light. In the end of the pathway, the visitors and students once again arrive to the vast desert plane full of creosote bushes and mountains of rocks in the horizon.