September 18–December 4, 2026
United States
In contemporary construction, the least expensive materials are often the most widely distributed and tightly controlled. They arrive at sites as products certified for performance, detached from the conditions that precede their production. Earth is cheap in a different way. It’s always already present at building sites, displaced by architecture through its own foundations, piled at the margins of construction as a placeholder or byproduct. As a building material, it puts pressure on standardization and the cultural project of tolerance that make materials available and legible to architecture. Its apparent abundance belies the labor and knowledge required to build with it.
Earth Shed is an installation and distributed building practice that begins with the construction site and its contents. It’s made primarily from soil sourced from the project site, rammed and compacted into earth blocks. The project conceives the construction site as a platform for experiential learning and research, focusing attention on the ordinary tasks of building and how they organize people, materials, skills, and knowledge across contexts. A series of participatory workshops invites you to contribute soil, ram earth, make blocks, and eventually return building materials for continued use elsewhere. Earth becomes a kind of social media, where participation extends beyond the familiar image of bodies gathered around a shared task to the more relational conditions of instruction, demonstration, and techniques that can be transmitted from one person to another. Earth Shed produces common ground across the long-established divide between the discipline of architecture and the practice of building, bringing into contact the many people, processes, and sites through which buildings are made.
Exhibition opening: October 1, 6–8pm
Free and open to all
Exhibition workshops
Check soa.princeton.edu for more info and to sign up.
September 18 and 19, 12–2:30pm
Groundbreaking
October 9 and 10, 12–2:30pm
How to Build from the Ground Up
November 14, 1-4:30pm
In collaboration with Princeton University Art Museum; free and open to the public and designed for all ages.
Exhibition credits
Exhibition designed and organized by: Erin Besler, Besler & Sons / Exhibition Design Lead, Project Manager: Rob Williams / Project Team: Elaine Wang, Tyler Gray, Mason Magemeneas / Installation Assistants: Karis Choi, Georgiana Grinstaff, Aerin Washington / Graphic Design: Christina Huang, OFFICE CXLHUANG.
Many thanks to
Rob Staudt, Associate Director, Grounds Support & Logistics, Landscape Grounds Shop / Sean Gallagher, Director, Civil Engineering, Engineering and Campus Energy / Robert Lussier, Construction Support Manager, Engineering and Campus Energy / Herlyn Figueroa-Estrada, Labor Assistance, Local 175 / Joseph Kirchgessner, Loader Operator, Local 825 / Stephen Winzinger, Excavator Operator, Local 825 / Fred Cattani, General Foreman, Local 175 / Chris Sims, Foreman, Local 175 / Steve Gallagher, Laborer, Local 175 / Manny Santiago, Laborer, Local 175 / Mike Winchock, Operating Engineer, Local182 / Al Bonaduce, Transport, J&J Trucking.
Princeton SoA Staff: Jeanette Turner, Kate Harmon, Courtney Coffman, Bridget Moriarity, Marie Baretsky, John Hunter.
Special thanks to Dean Sylvia Lavin.
