Dominic Martino

JANUARY 2020

Program: Fire Watchtower / Climate Research Station / Memorial

Location: South Mount Hawkins, Los Angeles County, CA

This project is a competition entry for the 2020 John Stewardson Memorial Fellowship in Architecture. After the competition brief was revealed, ten days were given to create a proposal. The competition challenged competitors to design a fire watchertower atop the peak of South Mount Hawkins in Angeles National Forest. The tower needed to simultaneously function as a fire watchtower, climate research station, and memorial to previous firewatch towers that had stood on the site and had been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The ruins of the last still exists on the site after it had burned down in 2002. The new design needed to provide shelter for observers, researchers, and hikers, become a participant in the forest’s ecology, and embrace this inevitable reality of the forces of nature, ultimately leaving the remains for the purpose of memorialization. In addtion, water and electricity for the tower needed to be created and stored using sustainable practices as the site could not be connected to the electrical grid or public utilities. Construction methods for the tower were limited to use of only light equipment.

In acknowledgement of the natural lifecycle of the forest and its inevitable wildfires, and of the inevitable destruction of fire lookout towers, this proposal seeks to establish a balance between both ephemerality and permanence as well as recognize the impact that humans have on the forest. A series of locations on the site are proposed and established for the watch tower rather than only one. Arranged in a circle around the original tower, five locations are created to serve as a place for future towers to stand as well as to memorialize those destroyed in the past. This arrangement is intended for one tower to be built at a time on one of the five bases while ruins from previous towers are allowed to simultaneously decompose into the soil. The bases of the five towers are built out of stone to allow them to be durable and resistant to destruction by fire while the towers themselves are built primarily out of locally sourced Douglas fir. Materials were chosen as a holistic and natural approach to allow the construction to be almost entired biodegradable, minimizing impact on the environment. The choice of these materials also considers the construction process, only requiring light construction equipment to transport them and build with them.

As one arrives at the site on the existing trails, they approach the tower and visitor center, which can be used for a variety of events and serve as a temporary shelter for hikers. As visitors walk around the perimeter of the tower, they see reflections of both themselves as well as the landscape in the glass, a reminder and manifestation of both persitent observation of the forest as well as of human interaction with it. On top of the visitor center is an array of photovoltaic panels, allowing for onsite generation of power. The tower itself, through its structure and organization, is designed to provide an unobstructed 360-degree view of the area for fire watches. It also functions as a climate observation station in its lower levels and provides accomodations for staff.