Each year, third-year TSOA M.Arch students produce an intensive design-build Thesis Shelter that they research, conceptualize, design, and construct over a period of three semesters. The Shelters at TSOA have been a tradition since the days of the Taliesin Fellowship in the 1930s and over the decades have taken various permanent and ephemeral forms and responses to the Shelter program legacy. Originally taking the forms of shepherd's tents composed of four low desert masonry walls sheltered by canvas roofs, the structures served as dwellings for apprentices and students for decades, creating relationships with natural environment of the desert over an extended time period.

Credits: Thesis Shelter project by Tristan Durham, 2023. The School of Architecture.