Inspiration Point | REBIRTH
Arizona State University - Advanced Architecture Studio VI 602
Professor Arne Emerson - Spring 2025
This post-wildfire habitat restoration facility, embedded into the scarred topography of Will Rogers
State Historic Park, serves both as a support system for returning fauna and a living landscape laboratory for
ecological regeneration.
Architecture here is a habitat scaffold. Designed not as a defense against nature, but a companion in its cycles.
Subterranean and folded into the hillside, this sanctuary nurtures new soil, shade, and shelter.
Planted roofs host fire-following flora.
Shards of structure frame views and introduce both shade and flight
It is not meant to last forever.
It is meant to restore what can.
Project Description
Design Objective
Titled Local and...Global, this advanced graduate studio focused on designing a site-specific architectural response to a community impacted by natural disaster. Framed by the dual urgencies of climate change and social equity, the studio emphasized architecture’s role in addressing essential human needs—shelter, safety, and resilience—as the foundation for self-actualization. The work engaged both local systems and global networks of relief, proposing holistic interventions that respond to immediate crisis while envisioning long-term recovery. The studio foregrounded “the local” as both subject and collaborator, encouraging architectural solutions that are rooted in place yet responsive to the interconnected realities of a rapidly changing world.
Program requirements included:
-
Primary building: 20,000–40,000 sq. ft.
-
Public/open space component: 10,000–30,000 sq. ft.
My project proposes a wildfire recovery and habitat restoration campus in Pacific Palisades, following the January 2025 fires. Situated at the edge of a historic park, the design reimagines architecture as a catalyst for ecological renewal and emotional healing—providing spaces for reflection, learning, and rewilding that serve both human and non-human communities.