Petrified Forest Boutique Hotel

This boutique hotel was designed as a site-specific retreat within the surreal terrain of the Petrified Forest in northeastern Arizona. The project responds to two core conceptual drivers: fracture and time.

The first concept emerged from the visual phenomenon of petrified logs appearing cleanly cut—an effect caused by quartz’s brittle nature, which fractures along points of weakness. This idea of angular fracture informed the geometry of the cabin and clubhouse, where sharp lines and sculptural forms echo the natural fragmentation of the landscape.

The second concept explores the passage of time. With the forest standing for over 225 million years, I sought to express time architecturally through light and shadow. Inspired by how daylight can act as a natural clock, I developed a study model to observe how shadows shift across angled surfaces. These findings were integrated throughout the project, allowing the architecture to interact dynamically with the sun and evoke a sense of temporal rhythm.