The Wood Kiln at North Dakota State University

The NDSU Wood Kiln is located on the ground floor of Renaissance Hall, home of NDSU’s visual arts and architecture and landscape architecture departments. The building showcases work of faculty and blossoming artists and architects. The kiln, too, is beautiful and functional, a carefully crafted work of art.

The visual arts program emphasizes using local materials and environmental responsibility. The orange brick covering the outside of the 26-foot-long rectangle is from Hebron, a town in western North Dakota known for brick produced there. Much of the kiln’s innards—a layer of common brick and a layer of insulation brick—are salvaged materials. The builders used bricks from an old kiln and a discarded step from another building on campus.