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In 2006, we were approached about constructing a zendo to be installed at Burning Man, the annual, week-long festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. I thought recycled cardboard would be an appropriate material for a building at Burning Man: it’s easily available, inexpensive, and portable. Coincidentally, our shop is located next to a recycling plant, where we were able to get the material we needed at 7¢ a pound with the option to return any excess for a refund.
The zendo design had to be large enough to fit 30 people meditating or resting at any given time. Our challenge was to enclose the most space using the least amount material, but engineered to withstand sudden desert storms.
I’d been thinking about cardboard as a building material for a long time, and had built several pieces of furniture using discarded packing boxes. I was interested in the connections between wood and cardboard, aside from the most obvious fact that they both originate from trees. For early farming communities in 19th-century America, trees were as much a nuisance as an asset. They were cut to make way for settlements, but also served as free material for building and heat. Cardboard, it seemed to me, could be a modern-day equivalent to the Pioneers’ trees. Cardboard is abundant and it’s a nuisance; the accumulation of cardboard boxes symbolizes our consumerism and associated waste. But cardboard might also be an asset if turned into a viable building material.
We installed the zendo temporarily at the saw mill in Oakland, and cut elliptical doors on opposite sides, before transporting it to Burning Man.
The effect of the oculus on the interior space was unexpected. We originally thought of the opening in the roof as an expedient, something to facilitate construction, and planned to close off the opening with a draw-string curtain. Once the zendo was in use, the oculus worked fine the way it was—it didn’t let in too much heat or cold.