Our 13 acre campus is nestled in the foothills of Mt. Sopris in Carbondale, CO along the Roaring Fork river, between Aspen and Glenwood Springs.
The passive solar, straw bale construction was designed by Jeff Dickinson and built by the Waldorf community in 1997.
The architecture was inspired by Rudolf Steiner, offering warmth and healing to all who enter. Perhaps the most striking feature of the school’s interior is the interaction between form, light and color. None of the classrooms are square. The spaces respond to the human form rather than simply enclosing it. We are proud that our students learn in the cozy confines of a wi-fi free, solar-heated, naturally lit, straw-bale school.
The external environment is also an integral part of the Waldorf education. Each classroom opens to the outdoors. Seven acres of wetland and river frontage serve as an extension of the classroom and laboratory for environmental education experiences, nature studies.
We collectively acknowledge that the Waldorf School on the Roaring Fork is located on the traditional, ancestral, and contemporary lands of Indigenous people. The campus resides on land that was cared for and called home by the Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute) people. In offering this land acknowledgment, we affirm tribal sovereignty and will work to hold the Waldorf School on the Roaring Fork accountable to American Indian peoples and nations.
Jeff Dickinson, alumni parent and architect for WSRF, discusses the process for designing the straw bale building to create a space of love, light and education for WSRF students as well as his family's own journey with the WSRF.
