Treeline Stage

One of six distinctive stages at the festival, the Treeline Stage will host 18 of the weekend’s many bands. Like its two eponymous predecessors, the structure will leave no trace once the festival is over, except in the memories of the 3,500 attendees who will have the chance to experience its beauty.

This year’s Treeline Stage is made from 1,280 pieces of dimensional lumber, a workhorse material in the building industry, provided by construction firm Lease Crutcher Lewis. Soaring to a height of 28 feet, the off-the-shelf 2x4 wood studs combine to form a series of leaning linear elements that intersect each other as they reach the sky at the edge of the forest on Pendarvis Farm, signaling to musicians and music lovers alike that this is a place of transformative, collective musical experiences.

In what has become a tradition for the Treeline Stage, the concept of “diversion design-build” is the overriding theme. The design team’s goal was to create an extraordinary performance setting from everyday materials that are temporarily diverted from their usual industrial purpose, and then sent back to work once the festival ends. This year is no exception, as the wood studs of the Treeline Stage will next perform together as the structure of the 2016 Portland State of Mind Pavilion in October (another original design-build project led by the PSU School of Architecture). Thereafter, they will be reclaimed by Lease Crutcher Lewis and repurposed for concrete formwork, rough carpentry, and backing at construction sites throughout Oregon.

The project is led by Assistant Professor Travis Bell, and Clive Knights, Professor and Director of the School of Architecture. Graduate architecture students form the design-build team, joined by other students, alumni, and volunteers during the on-site fabrication process. Evocative, dynamic, colorful lighting created by theater designer Dan Meeker will add to the visual drama each night after dark, once the sun’s natural rays, gleaming over the edges and of the studs throughout the day, have faded.

This year’s Treeline Stage follows the 2015 design, which was made from 435 giant cardboard sheet-steel-shipping tubes in a variety of lengths, and the 2014 rendition, constructed from 520 wooden shipping pallets. In each case, these ordinary building materials came together to form the Treeline Stage and provided a temporary home for musical performances, from thrashing punk to ethereal folk, before being returned to service in the building industry.