By Barbara Harwood

A couple of springs ago, a student named Kevin came bounding into the studio: “I think I’ve found a site for my shelter. Can you look?”

One of our duties as Adjunct Professors at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture is to assist the students in designing and building a desert shelter in which they will live during their winters at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“Sure,” I replied,” heading out onto the desert path that led to his newly chosen site.

“Look,” he said, using his hands to show me how the shelter would be set onto the site, “I’ll have the south open to the sun here so it can keep me warm in winter, and I’ll put up a stone wall here on the north to protect me from the winds . . .  “

As he continued, I could see his mastery of the concepts of passive solar heating and natural cooling.

But he had missed something vital. “Kevin,” I asked, “What do you see on the northwest edge of your site?”

“A dry channel . . . like maybe an old creek bed?”

“Right,” I said. “Now look northeast. What do you see there?”

“Another dry creek bed?” he answered.

“Right, and where do these two dry creek beds meet?” I asked.

The light was beginning to dawn.  “Oh, right in front of my site.”

“So,” I said, “in Arizona these dry creek beds, or arroyos, look dry and useless in the dry season. But if we should have a heavy rain, what do you think would happen here?”

“Well, I guess water would run down both of these and they would join right here, and if it got too deep, I guess I would get pretty wet,” he said.

“Right. So what does this mean for the site you have chosen?” I asked.

“I think it means that if there is a big rain I might be in serious trouble – like I might be washed away or even drown.”

BINGO!