Frank Lloyd Wright could be linked most strongly with Oak Park, Illinois, where his very first home and studio were located, and Spring Green, Wisconsin, where Taliesin is located, but on par with these two locales is Scottsdale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. Here is where he generated another Taliesin — Taliesin West — at which he spent the winters in the previous two decades of his life. Before expanding the Taliesin Fellowship to the desert through permanent buildings, he set up camp in a tent-like construction.
This strategy of living in modest dwellings on the land endures in the shelters which students of Taliesin, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture construct to the day. One of them, designed and built in 2010 by Dave Frazee (currently a part of Broken Arrow Workshop), is an enclosed shelter that’s increased above the desert floor to, as he says, “keep the desert life” As we’ll see, the design is all about making the little space comfy while allowing the occupant to relish the adventure of living in the desert.
at a Glance
Who lives here: A student in Taliesin, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture
Location: Scottsdale, Arizona
Size: Concerning the size of a bed
That’s intriguing: Most shelters that Taliesin students build for themselves in the desert are temporary; this one is permanent and still serves students.
Broken Arrow Workshop
Called the Miner’s Shelter, the construction takes its name from the architectural ruins which were found in the project’s site, especially the concrete pad and chimney. Dave Frazee positioned the box he designed tangent to the chimney, atop one of the present concrete walls, bolstered by two steel posts.
This view of this shelter, together with Frazee straddling indoors and outside, captures only about the whole design: the glass front with door, the side windows, both the good rear and the space in the front of the protector, defined by the chimney, pad and fresh L-shaped low walls.
Broken Arrow Workshop
The rear of the shelter is coated in metal panels, whose rust finish will allow the shelter blend in the landscape even more over time.
The awning windows on the side are operable, allowing for lots of cross ventilation indoors.
Broken Arrow Workshop
Wright’s belief that there should be no obvious symmetry in building in the desert led to the distinctive asymmetrical rooflines of Taliesin West. Frazee’s design may seem like a departure from Wright’s assertion, especially when viewed from the vantage point, where the oxidized steel onto the back and the concrete chimney seem to make a symmetrical composition, but as we saw in the first photo there is a clear directionality to the little structure.
Broken Arrow Workshop
This view reinforces that presumed symmetry, but notice how the left half of this shelter, the steel-clad part (beginning at the left border of this window), cantilevers over the floor. This illustrates how the design responds to the site, both in design an present arrangement and in separating the interior from the critters under.
Broken Arrow Workshop
This view leaves the protector look as a tiny of a house — a thoroughly modern one, however a house really. I can see the yard defined by side walls, the large glazed wall capturing views and the good service core anchoring one side. This interpretation reinforces the school’s strategy of learning by doing. The students learn structure, but they also learn that design abilities are relevant at all scales.
Broken Arrow Workshop
These sketches by Frazee exemplify the two chief suggestions for the interior: a little, L-shape shelf plus a view through the glass. With such a little distance utilized mainly for sleeping, just how much more is needed?
Broken Arrow Workshop
The shelf may be used to hold a novel, but candles at night are more important; the shelters are off the grid.
The wood-frame walls and ceiling are completed in a plaster that provides the interior a cave-like look. The relatively modest awning window gets especially large in the space. This one specifically also gives a view of a part of this tree it sits alongside.
Broken Arrow Workshop
The other little window frames a view of the Phoenix Valley; its adjacent wall has been covered in birch; the surface also functions as a headboard.
The view through the glass wall with the sliding door is similar to something on a postcard, with a mountain called the cactus in the foreground. The concrete pad and low wall are a civilizing element in this view of the wild desert. The place of the chimney relative to the door allows a fire to warm up the interior at night.
Broken Arrow Workshop
Scattered about the property north of Taliesin West are the shelters of earlier students, some of them still in use and a few of them destroys like the one Frazee found and reused.
This site plan indicates some strategy to the areas of these shelters; notice the way that trees anchor the arrangement in the landscape. Drainage and breezes are other aspects, but placing a distance in the landscape through marking the floor, relating to the immediate landscape and other methods is an important part of designing a shelter.
Broken Arrow Workshop
The floor plan gives us a better idea of how the interior relates to the chimney and the paved space outside. It also shows how the steel panels are hung off the wall structure to make an air space. As Frazee describes it, “The atmosphere allows for hot air to vent from the construction, improving the insulation quality for the interior space.”
Broken Arrow Workshop
This segment actually accentuates the method by which in which the protector is propped upon the landscape; the articles that provide additional support could be seen in the lower left. More subtle, but no less important, is the small pitch to the roof. As Frazee clarifies, “The squirrels are not typically enclosed, but they can be difficult to sleep in. Enclosing it is particularly good in the rain, which is thick from December to April.”
Overall it is a subtle design that sensitively responds to its location while being a fairly comfortable place in town.
Broken Arrow Workshop
Project designer/manager: Dave Frazee
Assistant project supervisors: Robert Jackovich and Christopher Madden Carr
Project staff: Dakotah Apostolou, Charles Arundel, Glen Biehle, Thai Blackburn, Ron Boswell, Chelsea Clark, Emil Crystal, Daniel Dillow, Aris Georges, Jeff Graham, Dani Loryn Christi Hill, Russ Karlstad, Peter Maestri, Nick Mancusi, Brian Maxwell, Charles McCall, Michael P. Johnson, Gilbert Rey, Bob Sanders, Victor Sidy, Pierre Verbruggen, Samuel Wharton, and Huiee Wong
Photography by Nathan Rist and Dave Frazee
Watch more small-space innovations from New York to Bali