page_title: Lama Foundation
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Lama Foundation / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo by Bobby Burke
context_page_description: Lama Foundation is a spiritual community founded in 1967, located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico, seventeen miles north of Taos. The original commune was co-founded by Barbara Durkee, Stephen Durkee, and Jonathan Altman.
context_section_description: Most of the buildings are straw bale, adobe brick, and straw clay structures and were built by residents of Lama and/or participants in natural building workshops. Common structures were adobe with vigas and latillas, or a-frames – with names like "Muffin House", "Tower House", and "Orange Room". A massive forest fire in 1996 destroyed approximately 20 of the community's buildings, though the central complex survived.
  In 1969, Lama published Steve Baer's Dome Cookbook, and in 1972 published his reprint of Buckminster Fuller's 4D.
  During its early days, the Lama Foundation was an early innovator within New Mexico in greenhouse design, constructing a so-called "pit greenhouse" with added heat storage to reflect biosphere principles. It permitted year-round cultivation of the community's crops.
  Recently from 2012 and continuing today, CU Boulder's Environmental Design Program has been designing and building small off-grid cabins on the Foundation to accommodate a wider range of guests as well as increased seasonal visitation capabilities. These small green cabins are a wonderful addition to not only enhance the ability of the community but also to serve as a practical design build experience for the students of the University of Colorado. Currently there are three student designed cabins that reflect sustainable architecture, cost effective construction, and vary in design schema but fit seamlessly into the fabric of the outdoor community.
caption: Community Center at sunset.
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