The biennial Desert X has returned to California’s Coachella Valley for its 2025 edition. The artists featured this year offer fresh perspectives on a world increasingly shaped by human presence. For many, this manifests as an exploration of time within spaces where ancestral wisdom converges—and sometimes clashes—with contemporary visions of our shared future. As the most tangible marker of human transformation, architecture serves as the foundation for numerous projects, ranging from pavilion-like structures to more understated forms.

Ronald Rael’s Adobe Oasis reimagines and revitalizes traditional yet overlooked earthen building techniques by merging them with contemporary technologies. Constructed through an innovative 3D-printing process that uses robotic programming to shape structures entirely from mud, Rael’s corrugated earthen ribbons echo the textured trunks of palm trees. Inspired by the enduring presence of Coachella Valley’s palm oases, the installation creates passageways that frame the land and sky, inviting moments of solitude and connection while embodying the cyclical rhythms of geologic time.

Desert X 2025 is on display through May 11. More information can be found here: https://desertx.org/

 Follow me on Instagram: @jg_travels