scrambling over sandstone outcrops,
poking around for mushrooms at the
trunks of fallen trees, and learning from
his father to distinguish an aspen from
a birch. “We climbed all over the bluffs,
building forts. They were our Playstations
and Gamecubes,” Gundersen recalls.
Eco-vision
Most of us slapped together a
treehouse in our days of make-believe,
but few of us went on to tackle a quarter
billion dollar space-age Biosphere 2 in
Arizona, an eco-lodge in Costa Rica, and
some 50 passive solar greenhouses in the
Upper Midwest. Like the organic architect
Frank Lloyd Wright, who drew inspiration
from the farms, fields and forests near
Spring Green, Wisc., Gundersen now
expresses the natural beauty he learned
to love in the bluffs around La Crosse. In
fact, he has been called an “eco-architect,”
for under-girding his wide range of
designs is a complex natural philosophy:
a concern for future generations, for
biodiversity, for renewable resources, for
physical and spiritual health. In short, he
embraces a purpose broader than merely
Photo by Megan McCluskey, Atypik Studio
Photo by Megan McCluskey, Atypik Studio
Buildings crafted of whole trees blend well
with the Coulee Region landscape, as this
photo proves.
The structural elements of whole trees are
50 percent stronger than those of machined
lumber, says Architect Roald Gundersen.
Its strength-to-weight ratio is similar to steel
and it’s a product that cleans the environment
and provides habitat while being produced.
by Scott Reber
Apollo 11 and whole trees. These
two things are inextricably linked for
Roald Gundersen. It was 1969 when
we first encountered an outside view
of our fragile planet, and when a nineyear-
old boy first marveled at pictures
of this lonely jewel suspended in
space. “Like millions of people,” says
Gundersen, “I watched the moon shot
on TV. It had a profound effect. We
began to see ourselves as earthlings.”
That boy grew up on the
bluffs, exploring the woods on his
grandparents’ land in Ebner Coulee,