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As part of the assignment, CMDI students spent the day exploring Eldora for a site visit.��
Header image: Hunter Wright, director of sustainability and project development at Eldora, guides CMDI students through the ski resort to give them a sense of the property. Photos by Kimberly Coffin and Addi Rexroat.

It’s not every day that “a local’s mountain,” as Jade Polizzi refers to Eldora Mountain Resort, is listed for sale. But when it hit the market in August 2024, Polizzi was quick to get CMDI students involved.

This spring, Polizzi (EnvDes’99), a teaching professor in environmental design, centered her senior architecture studio on the theme of “celebrating snow.” Over the 16-week capstone course, students completed three resort-inspired projects, including a redesign of the Lookout, Eldora’s signature lodge. In the summer, the town of Nederland announced its intention to purchase the resort.

“I’m always looking for projects that will get students excited,” Polizzi said. “This was a good one, especially because so many of our students are outdoor enthusiasts and love thinking about a ski resort. This is something they can connect to, and now they get to re-envision it.”

‘Like the bumper rails’ in bowling

For this project, the connection to the work included skiing a blue run during a site visit, as well as a more traditional opportunity to receive critiques from design professionals. Tobin Taylor (EnvDes’25) said his favorite part about Polizzi’s teaching philosophy is that it removes boundaries, creating an inspiring environment to experiment with new design ideas.

“She’s like the bumper rails guiding us to the bowling pins,” Taylor said. “She really inspires us to make beautiful things.”

View a 360 of the wood sculpture.

Two-dimensional abstractions.

Students explored wood as a material and constructed an abstract sculpture using tools available in the Creative Labs Center woodshop. They referenced the sculpture to hand-draw a two-dimensional abstraction. Designs by Orion Davis and Bailey Freeman

In an architecture capstone course, students work through complex design challenges, like environmental sustainability, user experience, and integrating building technologies and structural systems. To jump-start the students’ creativity, Polizzi assigned them what’s called an exploration, where they created abstract sculptures using wood.

“Wood is a warm element, and most resorts have some component of wood in them,” Polizzi said. “I wanted to get them in the wood shop to rethink what your typical lodge looks like.”

Outcomes from the exploration influenced motifs used by students for the next two projects—redesigns of the Nordic Center and the Lookout—with an emphasis on beautiful designs that harmonize with the land.

Orion Davis’ concept was regrowth and return to nature, a theme she wove into her inhabitable designs.

“Because the Nordic Center is on such a drastic slope, I sank the building into the site a little bit to make it more accessible,” Davis (EnvDes’25) said. “For the Lookout, I took the same idea and exaggerated it. You start at the top with this minimalist building, because it’s so sunken into the ground—but as you move through, you get this array of views. It really meshes with the topography.”

Taylor’s Lookout design focused on highlighting the peak experience while providing shelter for skiers and staff.

“My building is essentially this idea that the earth at the base of the mountain has been pulled up, and you can go beneath it and use it as shelter,” Taylor said. “I hope people appreciate that, and don’t just pass it by as they walk through.”

Real-world experience

Polizzi’s course was run as a client-based studio, in which students interacted with the team at Eldora—including its general manager and sustainability director—to get guidance and site context throughout the semester. This included a much-anticipated field trip to the mountain, with all-day ski passes and rentals for students.

“We had the most perfect day,” Polizzi said, “even if some of the students may have exaggerated their skiing abilities.”

At several points during the semester, alumni from local architecture and design firms were invited to participate in guest critiques—a regular feature of environmental design studio projects.

For graduating students, these casual settings offer both network development and real-world feedback from design professionals—like Hans Cerny, of ESA Architects, who designed the Caribou Lodge at Eldora.

“Hans gave us reviews for the midterm, which was incredibly cool, because we got direct feedback from someone who has done this before,” Davis said. She was experimenting with green roofs, which incorporate a top layer of vegetation, and felt unsure about the direction of her design.

Feedback from Cerny and other professionals validated her choices.

“I learned that it doesn’t have to be my best idea to still be a good idea,” Davis said. “It gave me an opportunity to challenge myself and run with something. I know that 99% of the class would say the field trip and skiing during a school day is their favorite memory, but for me, it was the midterm.”

Allyson Maturey is a communications project manager for CMDI.