If the Woods is our daytime cathedral, Cherry Hill is its dark, mysterious sister. This neighborhood sleeps by day, waking after sundown to become a glowing, avant-garde wonderland on the ridge. Led by the PSU School of Architecture, Cherry Hill features massive, student-built structures that guide you through the festival’s most radical visual experiments.

Nets, Waves, and Light

This year’s theme draws on the power and rhythms of the ocean, and the nets at the heart of the fishing industry. As the primary material for the 2026 stage, disused fishing nets form cylindrical shapes on land, stretched and draped from elevated towers reminiscent of carrelet fishing huts, intermingling with the tall trees behind the stage. Their knotty, undulating surfaces catch and reflect light behind the performers, while strategic uplights reveal the large implied volumes. The ocean currents that once moved these nets underwater become, in this context, musical waves — the nets filtering light, sound, views, and movement, creating moments of opacity and transparency, enclosure and openness. In the same way water moves through a net and reaches the shore, sound moves through the installation and reaches the human body.

Diversion Design-Build

The structure embodies Diversion Design-Build, a practice invented by PSU Architecture professors and students in which materials are temporarily diverted from their usual purpose to build a festival venue, then returned to use or recycling — leaving no trace on the land while making a lasting impression in memory. The concept began with the 2014 Treeline Stage, built entirely from shipping pallets that later resumed hauling appliances. Later iterations incorporated cardboard steel-wrapping tubes, apple crates, cable reels, and lumber trusses — some of which became sleeping pods for veterans transitioning out of homelessness in Clackamas County.

A Global Purpose

This year takes reuse further: once the nets have served at Cherry Hill, the maritime recycling nonprofit Net Your Problem will ship them to Ukraine, where they’ll be repurposed to protect villages from drone attacks — nets that once caught fish, and provided livelihoods for Oregon fishermen, going on to save lives in a war zone. In between, they’ll form a venue where the Pickathon community gathers for a weekend of music and togetherness. A net is made through connection: each strand depends on the others, forming a larger system of support and collective strength — reflecting the values at the heart of the festival.

Design Team: Professor Travis Bell, Timothy Boscacci, Courtney Frederick, Russ Golubev, Isabelle Jones, Jake Muldoon, Anthony Westwolf

About the PSU School of Architecture

PSU’s School of Architecture offers a four-year bachelor’s degree and both a two-year and three-year track Master of Architecture, emphasizing architectural design, the humanities, tectonics, and the profession. The Master of Architecture concludes with a design thesis exploring questions of architecture, culture, and technology. The school’s Center for Public Interest Design also offers the first Graduate Certificate in Public Interest Design in the United States.