The Emergence
Project
Concept animation, day to night
An Emergence projectAdmit one

All aboardNo. 2025
Stamped: completed. The Love Tram Black Rock City 2025 Completed

Completed · Black Rock City 2025

It happened, and it was lovely.

In 2025 we set a whimsical gondola down in the Black Rock Desert and invited everyone to climb aboard. It was a soft red room for love in all its forms, open to couples, friends, and strangers.

Built by handMarch to August 2025

Stop 1 The idea Drawings, then renders

How a tram almost became a hobbit house.

  1. We started with drawings.
  2. We fed the drawings some AI.
  3. We narrowed it down and refined… but now it looked like a hobbit house.
  4. Back to paper.

The renders became our reference. The tram itself was built by hand, plank by plank, which brings us to the next stop.

The Love Tram as we imagined it: a carved wooden gondola with red curtains and a glowing heart, alone on the cracked playa.
Concept render Day, on the playa. The picture we built toward.
Stop 2 The build March to August 2025 · real photos

Then we built the real thing, by hand.

First the bones: a solid 3 inch welded steel frame, hippy-tested for strength, stability, and late-night dance party durability.

Then we wrapped it in locally reclaimed cedar and redwood siding, every plank hand-treated to bring out its natural beauty (and to survive the desert, hopefully).

The tram’s body standing on gravel, framed and sided in reclaimed wood, windows still open to the pines.
Framed, sided, and still open to the pines.
Close up of two weathered reclaimed planks, grain and knot holes catching the sun.
Two of the good ones.
The tram from the side, its angled wooden walls and arched window frames against a blue sky.
Those angles took some figuring.
The tram half wrapped in white house wrap, half sided in warm wood, with a patchwork of offcuts in the middle.
Half wrapped, half sided. Getting there.
Looking down into the tram’s interior framing, with outlets, a switch box, and coils of blue cable.
Inside, before the red carpet: framing, wiring, a lot of blue cable.
A sunlit wall of plywood and weathered trim with a row of dark round knots running down it.
Knots in the wood. We tucked hidden LEDs into knots like these, because we can’t resist a little extra glow.
Red, green, and yellow stained glass pattern pieces, numbered by hand, laid out on a workbench.
Numbered, like a puzzle.

The windows & trim

The stained glass windows were Nick’s design. To be fair, he was mostly figuring it out as he went.

The decorative redwood trim came from Santa Cruz, carved into scrolls with round stained glass inlays set right into the wood.

A carved redwood roof scroll on the workbench with four round colored stained-glass inlays in red, green, lavender, and teal.
One of the carved redwood roof scrolls, with round stained glass inlays.
Nick holding the finished stained glass heart window up to the light in his garage workshop, red heart, green and yellow panes.
The finished heart window, held up to the garage light.
Stop 3 Inside Inside the tram · real photos & concept renders

Inside, it was a bohemian love sanctuary.

Damask walls, stained-glass hearts, plush red carpet, and warm red light that shifted for recording and playback.

Inside the real Love Tram bathed in deep red light: damask wallpaper, a Tiffany-style stained glass shade overhead, the stained-glass heart window in the door, and mixing controllers on the booth counter.
On the playa, 2025 The real mixing booth under red light, with the stained-glass heart window glowing in the door.
  • The booth

    A love song to take home

    A retro mixing booth where couples, friends, and strangers could turn the story of their relationship into a song to take home after the burn.

  • The puddle

    The cuddle puddle

    A soft heap of a place for resting and bonding under the stars.

  • The vows

    A vow renewal ceremony

    For anyone who wanted to say it all again, on purpose, in a tram.

  • The exit

    The secret hatch

    Under the central rug, a secret hatch that let you out the bottom.

Looking at the closed wooden double doors from inside the red-lit tram: twin stained-glass heart windows above and a two-piece carved wooden heart handle meeting at the center seam.
On the playa, 2025 With the double doors closed, the two halves of the carved wooden handle met to form a single heart.
Draped red curtains around a low tufted bench, with speakers set into the wooden wall and a stained glass window by the door.
Concept render Early interior study for the curtains, cushions, and speakers.
Stop 4 On the playa Black Rock City 2025 · real photos

Out in the dust, and lit up after dark.

By day it weathered whiteouts and hosted weddings on the open alkali flat. When the sun went down, more than 10,000 LEDs traced every wooden edge and heart scroll across the desert.

A wedding and vow renewal ceremony in front of the finished Love Tram on the playa at golden hour, with the couple, officiant, and friends laughing before the stained-glass heart doors.
On the playa, 2025 A golden-hour wedding right on the steps of the Love Tram.
Three burners talking in front of the Love Tram during a golden-hour dust storm as sunbeams burst behind the carved wooden heart on the roof.
On the playa, 2025 Sunbeams breaking behind the heart crest in a late-afternoon whiteout.
Close up of the Love Tram’s double doors in desert daylight: diamond-parquet reclaimed wood below, twin stained-glass heart windows, and the carved heart roof crest.
On the playa, 2025 Diamond-parquet reclaimed wood, twin stained-glass hearts, and the Santa Cruz roof scroll.
The Love Tram glowing bright red at night on the playa, neon outlining its angled wooden walls and roof heart while bikes park by the open doors.
On the playa, 2025 After dark, with bikes parked outside and red light spilling onto the dust.
Twelve smiling crew members and friends in faux-fur coats and playa goggles gathered in front of the Love Tram at dusk with green neon edge trim glowing.
On the playa, 2025 Crew and friends in front of the tram at dusk.
Last stop Thank you Please mind the gap

Thank you for climbing aboard.

To everyone who rode the Love Tram, and everyone who lent a hand building it: you made it lovely.

A deck of Love Tram playing cards, illustrated with the tram, its curtains, and little hearts, fanned out around the box.
A pile of red Love Tram tickets with one on top that says Thank you.
Our thank-you ticket, and the Love Tram playing cards.
Next stop The Familiar Black Rock City 2028