Exploring built pedagogy, one college set out to disrupt structure and create a community of research by erecting a teaching lab yurt and inviting faculty to create a cohort of action researchers teaching in the yurt. The round shape of the yurt facilitated a more democratized learning environment where students found themselves a greater part of the learning and experienced their instructors to be positioned, literally, as facilitators of learning rather than keepers of the knowledge, where student accountability was inherent and an auditory/experiential connection to the world beyond the classroom created "aliveness" in learning.