Honorable Mention: American Architecture Awards 2023
Trail House | Sedona - Arizona | 2020

Architects: Gluckman Tang Architects
Design Team: Dana Tang, Greg Yang, Mark Shahlamian, and Grant Scott
General Contractor: PWI Construction, Inc.
Client: New Enchantment, LLC.
Photographers: Matt Windquist

Trail House is a 4,000 SF activity and retail center that responds to the beauty of Boynton Canyon, a red-rock box canyon in in Sedona, AZ. Trail House serves as a gathering point and a base camp for outdoor adventures for guests who are interested in hiking the trails, mountain biking, or otherwise soaking in the red rock vistas. Trail House was designed as a series of spaces along a “trail”, or circulation spine. Strategically situated on a main pedestrian path, the trail is expressed as a continuous indoor-outdoor wood trellis that draws guests inside to interact with the of Trail House.

On either side of the trellis are a series of brick-and-stucco clad volumes. To one side is a mountain bike pro-shop and outdoor-focused retail, and across the trellised hall is the sky-lit Map Room, an interpretive center that educates visitors about local trails and unique flora, fauna & history. Highlights of the Map Room include a topographic map table, trail maps printed on cork, and a video wall that features footage of local trails.

The materials of pigmented terrazzo ground concrete floors, multicolored San Luis adobe brick, and red rock-inspired stucco anchor the building in the landscape and integrate it within the Resort. A western red cedar and weathering steel trellis, topped with hand-peeled pine latillas, provides shade along the main circulation spine as it weaves the interior and exterior together. The landscape design includes seating areas with locally crafted benches made from blue beetle kill pine.

Rainwater, a precious commodity in the desert, informed the building and site design. Rainwater from the roof cascades down weathering steel scuppers into “bio-sponges” lined with rip-rap and local plants to manage runoff during the monsoon season.