Name: Burning Man residents
Location: Black Rock City, Nevada
Size: 100 to 800 sqft.
Favorite Element: being there

In general, Burning Man media coverage focuses on the bizarre and the amazing--the art cars, the 50 foot tall burning effigies, the nudity, the elaborate costumes, etc. This week, Apartment Therapy steps inside for a more intimate exploration of the ephemeral utopia in the desert.

Burning Man housing says as much about a person as their non-Burning Man abodes. Ideology, style, and taste are on parade but just behind some tent fabric, shade canvas, or piece of plywood.

Do you have an idea for a house tour? Let me know! jill AT apartmenttherapy DOT com

The incentive to build, as we see this week, comes from principles of design and space efficiency, as well as the desire to bring the familiar to an unfamiliar landscape. Erik Robbins, a San Francisco green office developer is most concerned with too much sprawl at Burning Man, so he and John Patrick, an architecture student, built a high-density apartment building to house 16 people on 6 floors! It's called 'Vertical Camp.'

A more typical layout in Black Rock City is the one story shade structure. Here, the designer of 'Pink Petunia Camp' does up her meeting space in frills and lace.' She claims that she is better at pink and frilly than the MadMax that pervades Burning Man, so she went with what she knew.