Pyra
A project of Fields (Laure Nolte and Paul Mosley). Built with Kevin
Lair, Associate Professor, Iowa State University, and Seth Andrews.
Under construction, 2026
Pyra is a full-scale timber pavilion designed by Fields for the Westbrook Artists’ Site in Winterset, Iowa. It sits on a minimal post foundation and will be assembled by hand from thin, locally milled boards. Construction began in summer 2026 with Kevin Lair (Associate Professor, Iowa State University; Director, Westbrook Artists’ Site) and Seth Andrews. Once monoculture farmland, the site has been returning to prairie through controlled burns that Lair has conducted for nearly a decade. Pyra serves as shelter for wildlife in this recovering landscape and as a platform for monitoring the burns. Over time it will show how a building and its ground act on each other as the wood weathers, the vegetation around it shifts, and the site gradually takes the structure back into its own processes of succession.
︎︎︎ Scale model in the Afield exhibition by Laure Nolte. Photo: Calum Moliter-Dyer.
Drone photography: Paul Mosley.
Credits
Team
Fields (Laure Nolte and Paul Mosley)
Kevin Lair (Associate Professor, Iowa State University; Director, Westbrook Artists’ Site)
Seth Andrews (builder)
Corbin Cunningham (model maker)
Foundations
Column footings for Pyra generously donated by Perma-Column, LLC.
Funding
This work is generously supported by Kent State University's College of Architecture and Environmental Design, the University Research Council (URC) Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) Program, and the University Teaching Council (UTC).