Swoon Art House: Rammed-Earth Studio and Artist Residency

calendar Apr 14, 2026 / · 7 min read · Art Artist Residency Gallery 80304 Boulder Colorado NoBo  ·
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Swoon Art House: A Rammed-Earth Studio and Artist Residency on Broadway

On North Broadway stand two long buildings with thick earth walls and round windows. This is Swoon Art House, the home and studio of Boulder artist Rebecca DiDomenico. It is also the base for two artist residencies. Since 2015, artists from around the world have come here to live and work for a few weeks at a time. The building itself, finished in 2013, is made of rammed earth, concrete, steel, glass and recycled wood, and runs on renewable energy.

Where is it? 4295 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80304 — on the North Broadway corridor.



What Swoon Is

Swoon's home page calls it "a transformative Art Space where large installation pieces are imagined and created by artist Rebecca DiDomenico and resident artists from around the world." It says its aim is to "foster collaboration between the arts community of Boulder and Denver."

It is three things at once:

  • A home and studio for DiDomenico
  • A residency that gives visiting artists a place to live, a studio, money and time
  • A place for public events — the site lists artist talks, open studios, fundraisers and other events

It is a private house, not a gallery with regular opening hours. To hear about events, sign up for Swoon's email list on its website.

The Name

Swoon's about page explains the name with a long definition. To swoon is "to be overwhelmed by ecstatic joy," to "let go of preconceived notions," and "to pass into a new consciousness." The page traces the word to the Old German swogen, "to sigh" — "not in resignation but with renewed insight."

The Building

Swoon was designed by DiDomenico with architect and builder Mike Moore of Tres Birds. Tres Birds did both the architecture and the building work, and finished in September 2013.

According to a Dwell article on the project, Moore first noticed DiDomenico's work at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, where she had made a large cave-like installation from mica. Later she stopped by the Tres Birds workshop, and the two decided to work together.

The design is built around the circle. Tres Birds writes that the circle stands for "unity, wholeness, infinite" — "that which is without a beginning or an end." Windows are cut into perfect circles, and the plan of the two buildings follows circular patterns.

Here are the main facts from Tres Birds and Dwell:

  • Two buildings. One is DiDomenico's home. The other is a 7,000-square-foot open studio for making art.
  • Rammed earth. The walls are made from 200 tons of rammed earth — local dirt and pigments pressed into walls 30 inches thick. Moore told Dwell that dirt dug out for the basements was sifted and reused in the walls. He and DiDomenico drew the patterns on the walls together over several weeks.
  • Other materials. Concrete, steel, glass, Spanish cedar, and flooring from old railroad boxcars. The bathroom walls are stacked black river rocks.
  • Energy. Four geothermal wells heat and cool the buildings. A solar roof on the carport makes electricity for the lights and the all-electric kitchen. The building has no natural gas. Tres Birds says the project runs on 100 percent renewable energy, and that an energy test found it beat building-code requirements three times over.
  • Flood planning. The whole site is inside the FEMA 100-year flood zone. Moore told Dwell that the foundation and drainage design was tested in the fall of 2013, when Boulder got about 18 inches of rain in 36 hours. Dwell reports that the basement, which holds DiDomenico's archives, protected the building. Even so, Moore raised the floor a foot above the recommended level as an extra precaution.

Inside

The inside is simple and bright. Moore told Dwell that the walls are mostly white "to move daylight evenly throughout the primary spaces," which matters in a building made for making and showing art. The thick earth walls carry the weight of the roof, so the studio has no posts in the way. The concrete floors were ground until they took on a natural polish. The two ends of each building are concrete walls that were poured on site and tilted up into place. The round windows, Tres Birds says, "create portals to the outside" and let in a lot of light.

The Artist

Rebecca DiDomenico makes large installation art. On Swoon's site, her work is the center of the space: big pieces are "imagined and created" here. The site also sells her smaller studio works, in series called Elemental, Sewn Drawings, Emanate and Pellucid. She sits on the board of both residency programs.

The International Artists Residency

The BMoCA + Swoon International Artists Residency is run with the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. It gives visiting artists "the studio space, resources, time, and freedom to realize expansive works of their imagination." It is open to artists, musicians, writers, curators and other creative people, and it values cultural exchange — artists living for a while in a new place.

A residency lasts four to six weeks, on a schedule that fits each artist. Artists get a stipend that Swoon calls "generous," and they live at Swoon Art House. Two events are held for each artist: a public artist talk about their work, and a dinner for invited guests and donors.

Past residents listed on the site include:

  • 2015 — Berndnaut Smilde
  • 2016 — Tomoko Sauvage
  • 2017 — Amalia Pica
  • 2018 — James Tapscott
  • 2019 — Tim Atkins
  • 2020 — Senga Nengudi
  • 2022 — Sandra De Berduccy
  • 2023 — Caledonia Curry and Emir Klepo
  • 2024 — Asim Waqif

The Native American Artist in Residence

The Native American Artist in Residence at Swoon, or NAAiR, is a second program for Native American artists. It gives them studio space, money, time and a chance to work with the wider Colorado community. It is open to artists in every medium — painting, sculpture, photography, film, installation, writing, poetry, dance, music, social practice, architecture and more.

This residency lasts two to six weeks. Artists also get a stipend and live at Swoon, and the same two events — a talk and a dinner — are held for each one.

The 2026 resident was Jordan Ann Craig, a Northern Cheyenne artist who lives and works in New Mexico's Pojoaque Valley. Swoon's page says she grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, studied at Dartmouth College, and won the H. Allen Brooks Traveling Fellowship in 2017 and residencies at the Institute for American Indian Arts and the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program in 2019.

Past Events

Swoon's past events page lists a dinner or talk for almost every resident since 2015, from Berndnaut Smilde's dinner in 2015 to Jordan Ann Craig's in 2026. It also lists a dinner curated by DiDomenico in 2024, and "Interzone" by the dance company 3rd Law Dance in 2023 and 2024.

Practical Information

Should You Go?

If you are interested in art or in green building, watch Swoon's events list. An artist talk is the best way to see inside one of North Boulder's most unusual buildings and to meet an artist who has come from far away to make work here.

References

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