OASIS - The Retreat

Location: Joshua Tree, California

Program: Artist’s Retreat and Performance Center

OASIS at Joshua Tree serves as an introspective space for artists to escape from the city, reflect and create. Hours from Los Angeles, the site provides accommodation for artists and their teams, performance and studio spaces, common areas, and moments for relaxation. The two main programs are chapel - spaces for contemplation and studio - spaces for creation.

Two distinct desert ecosystems, the Mojave and the Colorado, come together in Joshua Tree National Park, a land sculpted by strong winds and occasional torrents of rain. The area is home to sand dunes, dry lakes, flat valleys, mountains, granitic monoliths, and oases. The site is in a Basin and Range Province, a landscape of alternating mountain ranges and their adjacent basins. The collision of plates forming the rugged terrain inspired the planes and shifting levels of the OASIS, inviting the outside in. Located on top of the Morongo groundwater basin, water is drawn to the surface creating spas for guests.