Yucca Valley Material Lab

Yucca Valley, CA

Yucca Valley Material Lab (YVML) is a site of hands-on learning, transformative residencies, and community engagement located in the Mojave Desert. YVML supports underserved artists through fully funded residencies, scholarships, and teaching opportunities while offering public workshops in specialized techniques often missing from traditional education.

A 2025 FCI Technical Assistance Grant supported the planning and design phase for YVML's new Sustainable Studio—a low carbon, ADA-accessible adobe art studio and outdoor classroom. The communal workspace will be dedicated to material experimentation, alternative learning, habitat restoration, and community engagement.

A 2026 FCI Implementation Grant will support construction of the Sustainable Studio. The project centers adobe as a regenerative, affordable, and fire-resistant building material and incorporates adobe brickmaking into public programming. The Sustainable Studio features a high-performance earthen envelope and fully electric mechanical systems. The new studio is expected to reduce annual site energy use by approximately 67 percent relative to a code-minimum baseline