This spring, Cosanti Originals hosts a variety of engaging hands-on workshops and specialty tours that are open to the public. Each unique experience offers guests a peek into the life, traditions and methods of Cosanti artisans. Activities include:

Tile Making 1: Design
Friday, April 3 | 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
During the Tile Making 1: Design course, participants will develop their own designs to impress onto a tile. Guests will learn the techniques of shaping and designing clay while experimenting with the importance of tool shapes, layering and composition to create two or four circular tiles. This experience includes a guided tour of Cosanti. The cost is $145++ per participant for two tiles or $245++ per participant for four tiles.

Casting Cosanti
Friday, April 17 | 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

This workshop presents a hands-on opportunity that melds artistic expression informed by the desert with an exploration of Cosanti’s innovative and experimental historic site. Guests will be guided through the process of carving and shaping a mold made from desert earth and will create a cast plaster tile using the same techniques that shaped the construction of Cosanti itself. Experience includes a guided tour of Cosanti. The cost is $125 per person, plus taxes and fees.

Concrete Casting with The School of Architecture

Thursday, April 9 | 3 to 5 p.m.
The Cosanti Foundation partners with The School of Architecture (TSOA) to present this exclusive workshop. Participants will have the opportunity to work with The Cosanti Foundation staff as well as TSOA faculty and students to design a miniature decorative concrete casting, such as a small sculpture or paperweight.

The workshop begins with a brief history of silt casting at Cosanti and an explanation of how this method relates to current casting methods still used onsite today. Participants will then be guided through the process of designing a positive mold with foam and a negative mold with desert earth to create their concrete castings, which they can pick up within a week of production. The cost for this workshop is $125 per person, plus taxes and fees; spots are extremely limited.

Specialty Tours

Architectural Insights Tours

Sundays | 11:15 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.

Beginning in April, the new Architectural Insights Tours will take place every Sunday. This experience focuses on the architectural details not typically discussed on the regular daily tours and the history that built Cosanti as a whole, including how the bell craft shaped the architecture of its buildings and the technical earth cast experiments done on a majority of Cosanti’s structures.

These tours are led by Sophie Rabb, a member of The Cosanti Foundation, who served as the guest services manager at Arcosanti, Cosanti’s sister property, since 2022. In 2025, Rabb joined Cosanti as a tour guide. Tour cost is $40++ per guest.

Explore Cosanti’s digital event calendar to learn more and to register for these experiences at https://book.peek.com/s/4fb69620-ba8d-4cfe-88af-ff1247b1ddae/6aYp0.

For more about these events, visit https://cosanti.com/pages/hands-on-experiences, and to learn more about Cosanti itself, visit https://cosanti.com.