Our 2026 Design/Build Semester is off and running! The team spent their first week getting oriented to the campus and the Mad River Valley, getting oriented to tool use and safety, and exploring the woods of Vermont with sawyer Nick Zandstra. We love to start our programs with an introduction to the forest from Nick — not only does he introduce students to the primary material they will be working with, he also creates a vital connection to this place and landscape.

This past week marked the second week of the 2026 Design/Build Semester, starting with a guest lecture from Mark Krawczyk on permaculture. The lecture introduced the class to ways of understanding and engaging with a site as a living system, helping prepare us for our first day of site analysis. The following day, we drove up to East Burke, Vermont, where we began exploring the land that will become the focus of our build. After walking the site, observing its opportunities and constraints, and discussing our impressions as a group, we began translating what we experienced into a series of comprehensive site analysis maps and a 1/8" = 1' physical site model. This process gave us our first opportunity to move beyond simply looking at a site and begin thinking about how the landscape can inform design decisions.

The week was also accompanied by a lecture from Britton Rogers on the history of the Design/Build Semester. Learning about the origins and evolution of the program gave the class a better sense of the vision, expectations, and scope of what the semester will entail. Alongside the site work, we continued developing our chair projects, which have given us an opportunity to become more comfortable with power tools, fabrication, and the process of making something from our own hands. On Friday, we had our first meeting with our client, David Murman. In the photo, student Hugh Barrett is explaining some of the opportunities and constraints we identified on the site. Meeting David and hearing more about his vision for the project helped bring the work we had been doing throughout the week into focus. We are excited to begin iterating on designs, continue learning from the site, and ultimately see how we can help create the refuge that David dreams of.

-Danny McInerny, 2026 Design/Build Semester TA