Rural Studio Newsletter 2017 by Rural Studio

SINCE 1993

VOL . 6

PRINTED IN OPELIK A , AL

All of Rural Studio’s News from Hale County

2016 –17

Pg.2 Xavier Vendrell holds down the fort, spills the beans, and shares a few reasons to celebrate Pg.3 The Studio finishes two much anticipated multiyear projects in 2016, the Lions Park Shade and the RS Fabrication Pavilion Pg.4 We take a look back on a nifty installation built for reflection over at BMA’s Third Space show in Birmingham, as well as other exhibitions along the way Pg.5 The wait is officially over — Johnny Parker finally agrees to an interview... well sort of… Pg.6 The 3rd-year students build a family home for Johnnie Mae, as well as complete the glass roof of our greenhouse Pg.7 The town psychiatrist, Dr. John Dorsey, throws a Frisbee with us and tells us what’s on his own mind and where the heck he is coming from Pg.8 The 5th-year students build a home for Buster and help the community of Faunsdale create a public center Pg.10 Author Andrea Oppenheimer Dean tells us about art freaks with big hearts making work that is both sensible and precise Pg.11 Our very own Emily McGlohn and Kellie Stokes talk about their life within our own little world... and beyond Pg.12 From soup to nuts, a handful of alumni share what their life is like outside Hale County Pg.14 Lions Park gets some new hoops, the Newbern Library finally gets much needed speedy internet access, and you get a 20K Product Line update Pg.15 In other news, Hale County goes to Harvard when Andrew Freear begins the Loeb Fellowship this fall Pg.16 . Finally, take your yearly gander at all the lovely mugs of the students and staff who make all we do possible.

ruralstudio.org

BIG CHEESE Andrew Freear (on sabbatical)

ACTING BIG CHEESE Xavier Vendrell

PRINTING Opelika Auburn News

PRODUCTION Natalie Butts-Ball

EDITING Natalie Butts-Ball

COPY-EDITING Colleen Bourdeau, Eric Ball

LAYOUT Perky Bros.

Auburn University is an equal opportunity educational institution/employer.

LE T TER F ROM THE DIRECTOR

dear friends, greetings from newbern, i hope this finds yäall well. When I accepted a teaching position at Auburn University Rural Studio in April 2016, I never would have thought I would be writing the “Letter from the Director” for the sixth edition of the Rural Studio newsletter. But yes, Andrew decided to take some well-deserved time off. We hear he’s spent most of the year napping on a beach in Italy. It’s been another incredible year at the Studio, and we have lots of exciting news we want to share. The biggest news is that Andrew will be leaving us alone for one more year. He has been honored with the Loeb Fellowship at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University for the 20172018 academic year. Yes, Andrew will be at Harvard! Can you imagine that? I guess his British accent will be a great fit there. I hope Elena will buy him some decent shoes to wear around the Harvard campus. Seriously though, this is an amazing opportunity for him and for Rural Studio, as Andrew will seek to push and further develop the 20K Home project. We look forward to what Andrew will bring next year following such a fascinating adventure. On the “Studio gossip” front, there have been some faculty and staff changes. White-noise generator and drummer boy, Alex Henderson, has left the Studio and is driving a bus around the country carving wood and thinking about where to settle and start making noise again. We will certainly miss him. Producing a much more funky noise, Alex “Prince” Therrien has taken his place teaching in the 3rd-year studio. He has also been elected as a new member of the Newbern Library Board and is helping with the Greensboro Parks and Recreational Board. 3rd-year Visiting Assistant Professor, Jake LaBarre, finally learned how to build a house and is now back in Seattle where he plans to build one for himself and his wife. We loved having him here this year, but since we promised Steve Badanes we’d give him back, we will have to bring him back next year as a consultant instead. Johnny Parker is happier than ever since we hired Mason Hinton as the new facilities, vehicles, and tool maintenance manager. Dick Hudgens continued burning up the road driving our 3rd-year students around West Alabama sketching and studying his favorite old buildings. Joe Farruggia, our long-time friend and structural engineering consultant, is such an incredible educator; we are thrilled to announce that he has been hired as faculty, so he is now officially part of our teaching team. Steve Long and Natalie Butts-Ball have stayed busy this year explaining to everyone what I’m actually saying. Eric has been busy testing what he can do with the giant greenhouse, and he also just earned a Permaculture Design Certificate from Oregon State University. With a full Storehouse, Chef Cat continues preparing food and telling me jokes that I don’t understand. Brenda and Gayle, who recently had more bionic parts installed, this time in her other knee, continue in the trenches of the front office, and Doris Ward, new hire, is helping around Morrisette property. Speaking of trenches, this year Brenda’s son Warren Aubrey ran off and joined the US Army. Also, this summer Heather Jackson has been filling in at Morrisette while Gayle recovers. Over in Auburn, Melissa’s been busy raising money for the University’s $1 Billion Because This is Auburn Campaign. She also just celebrated the wedding of her oldest son in Colorado this summer. Longing to get back to teaching, David Hinson, our School Head for the last ten years, has stepped down. We are grateful for all he has done over the years; the impact of his guidance has been immeasurable. One of our colleagues, Associate Professor Christian Dagg, will be the new Head starting this fall. Back in Hale County, Susie Harris has been instrumental in helping the Studio get

a $10,000 grant from Alabama Power to make energy saving improvements at Morrisette House. They are so generous; they’re giving the Studio money to help us pay less money to them at the end of the month. Talking about improvements to our facilities, Red Barn pin-up and lecture space now has fans, more natural light, and a new and more efficient heating system. If the Rural Studio philosophy suggests that everyone, both rich and poor, deserves the benefit of good design, why not also students, faculty, and visitors? Speaking of visitors, this year we hosted thirty lectures. Many of these were from our usual suspects (Marlon Blackwell, Dan Wheeler, Frank Harmon, Julie Eizenberg, Hank Koning, Peter Gluck, Peter Landon, Steve Badanes, Jim Adamson, our friends at JAS, etc.), but we also had some exciting new faces visiting and lecturing at the Studio for the first time, including (long overdue) Will Bruder, Andy Bernheimer, Tim McDonald, Brian Schumacher, and Robert Hutchinson. This year, 5th-year students continued the exploration of the small, affordable home with 20Kv21 Buster’s Home and designing and building a community center in Faunsdale, Alabama, with our new partner the Faunsdale Foundation. Also in Faunsdale, the 3rd-year students built a home for Johnnie Mae, led by Jake LaBarre, with the support of the two Alexes. The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture successfully went through accreditation this year. In preparation for the accreditation team’s visit, we cleaned up all of our properties and filled every inch of Red Barn’s walls with student work. The accreditation team was speechless. We have implemented OSHA training

for all the students and staff. Mike Hosey, from the McWhorter School of Building Science, taught the 10-hour training course. He transformed the boring two-day training classes into something quite fun and useful. We all now wear branded fluorescent yellow vests and hard hats. From far away we look like little Fisher Price people. Additionally, we all took CPR and First AID training. This year the traditional workshops at the beginning of the fall semester included for the first time a special workshop with both Frank Harmon and Dan Wheeler, two masters of observing and sketching. It was a blast; three very intensive days of walking around and sketching in many different places. We hope this will become a new tradition to start the academic year. Other new participants in this five-week workshop were Julia Capomaggi, Jake LaBarre, Dason Whitsett, and David Hill. Of course our regulars returned: Danny Wicke, Mike Newman, Katrina Van Valkenburgh, Cheryl Noel, Ravi Ricker, and Joe Farruggia. In November we celebrated the completion of two new projects, the Lions Park Shade, a new project in Lions Park, and the Fabrication Pavilion at the Morrisette campus. Also, the glass enclosure for the greenhouse is finally complete! This challenge fell into the laps of the 3rd-year students from the fall semester. Last summer, with Tim McFarland’s guidance, Andrew, Alex H., Steve, and I did some tests for installing the glass. Our initial idea was to organize the students into two teams, with each team installing ten pieces of glass per day. The students were so industrious; they installed more than thirty pieces per day! At Soup Roast we continued with

our traditional alumni Pecha Kucha-style lecture night at the Faunsdale Bar and Grill, with nine extraordinary alumni as well as legends Steve Badanes and Jim Adamson. In January we also celebrated the opening at the Birmingham Museum of Art’s exhibition Third Space/ Shifting Conversations about Contemporary Art, where the Studio was commissioned an installation. Using the exact same lumber in both quantity and dimension as is used to build Dave’s Home, the Studio created a gathering space within the gallery designed for reflection and contemplation. Last October in Newbern, we celebrated the one-year anniversary of the opening of the Newbern Library. Lots of the local people and Studio friends gathered at the library courtyard to celebrate the event. On a sad note, Alfreda Howard has left the library to look for new adventures after doing an outstanding job. We will miss Alfreda. The Library Board recently hired a new librarian to take the library to a new level of excellence. The mercantile has expanded their food serving area. Leah and the crew, with the help of John Alex, are working hard and doing an excellent job. You must try the grilled catfish with thin sautéed potatoes and almost caramelized onions. Buy the new Mercantile T-shirt, the blue one is great! In Greensboro, the Parks and Recreational Board has been working with the City of Greensboro and the Studio to develop a seasonal maintenance plan for Lions Park. They also recently installed four new basketball hoops at the park. Come check it out! Andrew, Rusty, Alex H., and I were invited to give lectures all around the world this year. Between the four of us, we traveled to Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, Indiana, Alabama, Hawaii, Washington, North Carolina, Washington DC, Ecuador, Spain, Italy, South Africa, Ireland, Norway, England, France, Israel, and Austria. As always we ended the year with the Pig Roast celebration. The T-shirt and postcard design was a tribute to the late William Christenberry. The whiffle dust was the best ever thanks to Chip Spencer’s cannon invention. The speech by Frank Harmon was powerful, captivating, and subtle, just like his sketches and watercolors. I don’t have the British sense of humor, so the students were not really roasted, but instead were cooked a kind of nouvelle cuisine. The fireworks were fantastic, thanks to Johnny, and safer, thanks to Patrick. Tuscaloosa band, Golden Monica, closed the ceremony and had us dancing late into the night. Natalie, Eric, and Oliver almost didn’t make the Pig Roast, but thankfully, their new daughter Juniper showed up a few days later on May 4th. So we all have a new niece! If you want to know what is going on, check out the project blogs on our website, where you will see the official everyday life of the Studio. Of course, if you want to know the real story, come and visit us. With many new projects and Andrew not around, we can have fun and drink a glass of red wine. We want to thank the continuous support of the college, our community, and our donors; without them none of this would be possible. Finally, I want to say thanks to all the faculty and staff of Rural Studio for helping me survive this year! All the best and kisses,

Xavier Vendrell professor / acting director

RECENTLY COMPLE TED PROJECTS

Rural Studio Fabrication Pavilion

n Saturday, November 12, 2016, Rural Studio celebrated the opening of two incredible projects: the Fabrication Pavilion and Lions Park Shade. Family, friends, and alumni arrived in hordes, traveling from near and far to witness the ribbon cuttings and speeches. CADC Dean Vini Nathan, Auburn University Architect Jim Carroll, and Engineer Joe Farruggia were in attendance; and even Andrew Freear took a break from his sabbatical to partake in the ceremonies. The weather was perfect, the projects were stunning, and the mood was just right.

The existing outdoor covered workspaces at our Morrisette campus and woodshop were limited in space and performance. The Fabrication Pavilion team built a new, dedicated outdoor fabrication space that will improve craft and offer new construction opportunities. The new Fabrication Pavilion is the first of a two-phase project and provides a covered, level concrete working surface for students to build mock-ups and test ideas. The second phase, a woodshop, will sit beneath the roof of the pavilion and provide space for machining, fabricating, and teaching.

Student Team Adam Levet, Gabbi Rush, Kyle Wherry, Megan Wood

The pavilion structure consists of wood columns and trusses that are bolted together using a bypass construction method, in which wood members slip past each other to allow simple connections. Shear walls are attached from the concrete slab to the roof to stabilize the pavilion in the short axis. A Structural Insulated Panel (sip) roof sits on top of the wood trusses and handles the shear in the long axis of the building.

(Right) Photo: Timothy Hursley

Lions Park Shade

The Lions Park Shade team addressed the need for places of refuge throughout Lions Park for the casual park user. While the park features a beautiful shaded forest, the majority of the forty-acre park can become unbearable in the heat of summer. The project extends the shade past the forest along different areas of the walking trail, creating opportunities for rest, relaxation, and gathering. The shading structures symbiotically relate with recently planted trees, which will take fifteen to twenty years to

Photo: Timothy Hursley

Student Team Callie Eitzen, Julia Long, Alex Therrien, Daniel Toner

provide good shade. The structures create a layered canopy that allows precise shading at certain times of the day and year, changing over time and offering a unique experience for every park visitor. The main structure is made of welded aluminum beams and anodized steel columns. Atop this structure, shading members are made of a folded composite sheet material that has a core of recycled plastic and a stressed skin of metal.

E XHIBITIONS

Birmingham Museum of Art Last fall, the Birmingham Museum of Art commissioned Rural Studio to create an installation for its newest exhibition: Third Space /shifting conversations about contemporary art. The Studio proposed to build a space for gathering and reflection in the gallery space, while using this opportunity to explore and celebrate the materiality of our 20K Home project. In 2005, Auburn University Rural Studio began the 20K Home project, which is a research project that focuses on designing small homes which are affordable, efficient, durable, and beautiful. All labor and building materials are procured locally, fueling the local economy. Since timber production is one of the most important industries in Alabama, the Studio focuses on pine as a principal material for the structure of the 20K Homes. Rural Studio’s installation for BMA’s Third Space is composed of the exact same lumber, in both quantity and dimension, used to build 20Kv08 Dave’s Home. Construction lumber is rough with imperfections in both its appearance and dimension. Its very nature is somewhat irregular and imprecise. The beauty resides in the unique way the lumber was arranged in the installation. Under the high white oak ceiling of our recently completed fabrication pavilion, the Studio tinkered and experimented with different methods of stacking the lumber to create spaces and sitting areas. The design uses three walls of stacked lumber to create a small room. Additional boards intersect the walls and protrude from the sides creating sitting benches, a ceiling, and light wells. Variations in board width and gaps between stacked lumber create different levels of transparency through the walls. The entire installation is built without cutting or altering the lumber, and it is fastened together using deck screws. Once the mock-up was completed, the structure was disassembled and boards were transported to Birmingham and then reassembled in the gallery. As Rural Studio is always concerned about responsible use of resources, at the end of the two-year exhibition, the boards will be disassembled once again and carried back to Hale County, where they will be used to build a 20K Home. On the evening of Friday, January 27, 2017, the BMA celebrated the opening of the exhibition. It was a rip-roaring success. Nearly 1,400 crowded into the atrium and gallery. Live electronic music and southern cuisine fueled the night. The exhibition, which features over 100 works in a variety of media focusing on creating connections between the American South and other parts of the world, is well worth a visit. Big thanks to the BMA for making it all happen.

From Dave’s Space to Third Space Testing & Installation 1 Inspiration ↓

3 Final Test ↓

↑ Mock-up 2

Extraordinary Playscapes

5 Reassembly ↓

↑ Disassembly & Transport 4

Photo: Timothy Hursley

Lions Park Playscape, a 5th-year project completed in 2010, continues to be part of a major, nationally traveling exhibition, Extraordinary Playscapes, hosted by the Design Museum Foundation. The exhibition examines the art, history, science, and importance of play, while telling the story behind some of the most incredible play spaces in the world. Featuring over forty international playgrounds, drawings, sketches, videos, scale models, and playable installations, the interactive exhibition examines the importance of play and the latest thinking in playground design. The first stop was in Boston, Massachusetts and traveled to Portland, Oregon at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, October 6–January 7, 2017, then to San Francisco, California April 6–July 8, 2017 at the Fisher Children’s Center, with plans to travel to Chicago this fall. The Foundation also aims to produce a publication, Design and Play, featuring the exhibition, which will include the Lions Park Playscape.

↑ Completion 6

Sarah Moody Gallery & Georgine Clarke Alabama Artists Gallery The exhibition, which was originally shown in New York last year as part of Director Andrew Freear’s award given by the Academy of Arts and Letters, traveled to two cities this year. Our friends Bill Dooley, Director at the Sarah Moody Gallery in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, hosted the collection from August 15 - September 16, 2016, and then Elliot Knight, Director of the Georgine Clarke Alabama Artists Gallery with the Alabama State Council on the Arts in Montgomery, Alabama, hosted the exhibition January 23 – March 24, 2017. The exhibition included Timothy Hursley photographs and models of the Newbern Fire Station, Antioch Baptist Church, and Perry Lakes Park projects: the Pavilion, Restrooms, Covered Bridge, and Birding Tower.

STAF F PROFILE

Johnny Parker

f you don’t already know him, Johnny Parker is legendary. It’s true that he’s a real-life MacGyver and can fix anything. In fact, Sambo said “Johnny’s the best carpenter since Jesus”. And if you’re lucky enough to know him, you won’t ever forget him. (Probably because he saved your butt at least once.) He has many superpowers — one is always showing up when you’ve just screwed up. And if he really, really likes you, when you are exhausted on one of our hot and steamy Alabama summer days, he might bring you Gatorade and ice cream to your site.

Johnny has been on staff for nearly eighteen years in a construction supervisor role, but Andrew says “Johnny is truly one of the best teachers we’ve ever had. He loves a challenge. He single-handedly changed the game for Rural Studio, allowing us to take on complex structural projects like the Hale County Animal Shelter and the new Fabrication Pavilion at Morrisette with confidence and a ‘we can do this, we’ll figure it out’ attitude.” This fiercely loyal, animal-lover is a quiet person, is always the observer, and has an incredible intuition for anything or anyone he faces. We asked long-time friend and RS alumna Emily McGlohn* to interview Johnny for this year’s staff profile. Here’s how it went… Interview by Emily McGlohn See also Consultant Profile on Pg.11

This is how the phone call went when I asked Johnny Parker if he’d give an interview for the Rural Studio newsletter: JOHNNY: Hello? ME: Hey Johnny, it’s Emily. How’re you doing? JOHNNY: Just fine. ME: Um, they want me to interview you for the newslet-

ter. What do you think? JOHNNY: Why the %$&# do they want to interview me? ME: Well, because we want to know what you have to say. You are so mysterious. JOHNNY: No. ME: Ok. I can make this work. Talk to you later. JOHNNY: Bye. ME: Bye Johnny.

If you want to know more about Johnny, his lips are sealed. In the fifteen years I’ve known Johnny, he’s never been one to talk about himself — or talk much at all for that matter. So, to understand Johnny, you have to study the stories about him. I’ve written a few of mine that demonstrate he’s thoughtful, generous, a little impatient, a joker, and smart as a whip — that’s all you need to know. DARE YOU. I once owned a marine blue, 1971 Land Rover 88 Wagon with a brush guard, roof rack, fourwheel drive, and convertible top. Badass is a good description of this truck, and ridiculous is a good description of me driving it around Hale County. A muggy afternoon during the summer Johnny and I go mud-riding on some trails he knew about south of Myrtlewood. We convoy, Johnny in his black Chevy flareside pick-up, and me in my four-cylinder Matchbox. We are bouncing along as I successfully navigate the ditches while getting just the right amount of mud on the sides. Way back in the woods we find a swamp—a real West Alabama swamp.

Johnny does what Johnny wants to do. If you are nice, he’ll let you come along, and you’ll remember it forever. We get out, assess the situation, and Johnny says, “I dare you to drive across it.” I think about this and realize it’s a challenge of everything but my skill as a mud-rider. Without hesitation, I reply, “fine, and I’ll go in reverse.” Nutty as it seems, I know the truck won’t get very far, and figure when it has to be pulled out, pointing forwards would be a better position. I do it. I back right into a swamp to prove to Johnny I’m not scared, and I trust him. Of course the wagon sinks into the muck and I have to climb out the window and over the roof. Johnny laughs because it is hilarious, but I am proud of getting stuck in the mud. We don’t have a winch so Johnny drives into town, finds a comealong, and comes back to the swamp to pull me out. The bumper of my shiny little 4x4 was bent by the chain, and that dent was a badge of honor until I sold the truck a few years later. It represented our friendship, Johnny’s sense of humor, and it served as a reminder to never take another dare from Johnny. FOR ME!? A few weeks before mud-riding, Johnny calls and asks me to come by his house. I obediently drive to Greensboro and find he’s made a beautiful oak chest lined with cedar. He casually tells me to, “load this up,” like it was a pile of rocks or a stack of

lumber. The chest was a graduation present, and I was blown away by his thoughtfulness. It was expertly crafted with raised panels on all sides, had a hinged top, and was perfectly finished. A place of honor is reserved for this cedar chest in my house and it holds family quilts — a perfect home for them. Johnny is thoughtful like this. In another instance of generosity, he drove four hours to give my sister — yes, my sister — a chest of drawers. He overheard Robyn say she needed something for her clothes and delivered it to her. She still has this gift too. Not many people are as generous as Johnny. He’ll give you the shirt off his back if you need it or at least a good place to put yours if you don’t have one.

LOOKS LIKE WE GOT US A CONVOY. One of the respon-

sibilities that Johnny, Daniel McHugh, and I had was to assemble the Sambo Mockbee and Rural Studio traveling exhibit while it toured the country in 2003. Running a chainsaw in an art museum was the only reason Johnny and Daniel liked this job. We traveled to Arizona, Birmingham, and Washington D.C. together. If it was far enough away, Daniel and I flew, and Johnny always drove so Doofus—his dog—could come along. At the National Building Museum, the scheduled installation time was three days, but we finish in one and a half. Maybe it was the city or the crappy hotel, either way, after we finished Johnny decides to leave for Greensboro that night. Daniel promptly calls shotgun and I ask, “what about me?” They look at me and flatly respond together, “see you in two days.” There was no way they were leaving without me, so I climb in the back of Johnny’s truck — with Doofus — and off we go. Johnny drives the entire 13 hours. We hardly stop because he has an endless supply of Pepsi and Little Debbie snack cakes in the door pocket. I wake up once from dozing and see that we’re closely following a long line of tractor trailers going close to 100 miles an hour. Coincidentally, C.W. McCall’s song “Convoy” is blasting over XM Radio. We are certainly “rockin’ through the night.” Johnny gets us home safely early the next morning and sleeps for two days after that. Johnny does what Johnny wants to do. If you are nice, he’ll let you come along, and you’ll remember it forever. I have lots more stories about Johnny and they all tell me he is a teacher, craftsman, teller of the truth, there when you need him, and above all a friend. He would never say these things about himself, but we all know it’s true, and you don’t need a %&$#ing interview to prove it.

3RD -YE AR STUDIO PROJECTS

earning about design is as much about raw creativity and hard work as it is about developing great work within constraints. The starting point of the 3rd-year studio this year was to build upon the work already begun by others on two separate projects: Johnnie Mae’s Home and the glass panel installation on the greenhouse.

Johnnie Mae’s Home

This year 3rd-year students designed and built a home for Johnnie Mae. Based upon the design of the 20Kv20, Johnnie Mae’s Home is two living spaces under one roof and joined by a large accessible porch which gives the resident the option of additional private living space that could be rented out for added income. The larger of the two living spaces has a large open kitchen, dining and living room, an accessible bathroom with adjacent laundry area, and two bedrooms. On the other side of the dogtrot porch, the smaller space has a bedroom, a small bathroom, and a kitchenette. The students were tasked with how to site the building in a way that optimized the site, to develop an accessible entry, resolve the structure of the porch and roof, and develop the material choices and detailing of interior casework and exterior siding and decking, as well as fine-tuning the window locations. Johnnie Mae has lived and worked near Faunsdale most of her life, and her home is the location for large family gatherings most Sundays for barbecues and socializing. She has nurtured the Magnolia trees that she planted in her yard over twenty years ago, and her attention to the yard and neighborhood has inspired the design to incorporate additional trees and outdoor space to host future gatherings. A strong visual connection with the street and front yard has been maintained through careful window and door placement. With Xavier Vendrell stepping up to the role of Acting Director and 5th-year Professor, the Studio was joined by Visiting Assistant Professor, Jake LaBarre, a frequent Soup Roast critic and speaker, and architect and builder from Seattle. Jake’s background includes teaching at the University of Washington Neighborhood Design Build Studio with Steve Badanes of the Jersey Devils, building at JAS Design Build of Seattle, and working as an architect at the Miller Hull Partnership of Seattle. The Studio was instructed by Jake along with studio alumni Alex Henderson and Alex Therrien. Fall 2016 Cassandra Cody, Hyun Shin, Jacob Elbrecht, Jake Parks, Kate Mazade, Katherine Ferguson, Kathryn Cantine, Lauren Ballard, Madeline Gibbs, Meghan Bernhardt, Preston Rains, Rowland Sauls, Sarah Page

Spring 2017 Andrew Spencer, Carter Hadley, Dezzarah Jackson, Elizabeth Mims, Forrest Wood, Jedediah Grant, Julia Ruiz, Kaitlin Farley, Kayla Jackson, Maia-Alicia Meredith, Nadine Hernandez, Robert Nolan, Walker Reeves, Yibo Qiao

The Greenhouse In the fall students completed the installation of the glass panels on the greenhouse roof on the Rural Studio Farm by first organizing them by size, type, and location, then lifting them into place, and finally gluing them with structural silicone. This work was hot and tiring, but it really helped to develop a hands-on understanding of material tolerances and demonstrated what a group can get done when they work together.

Dr. John Dorsey

Project Horseshoe Farm is a local nonprofit dedicated to serving vulnerable members of our community with several programs including adult day programs, after-school programs, an Enhanced Independent Living Housing Program, and a Health Partners Program. The organization also offers a one-year fellowship program for recent college graduates from across the nation. Together with the Fellows, our 5th-year students participate in a weekly after-school math program for elementary and middle school students. John also currently serves as the Co-Medical Director of the Adult and Geriatric Behavioral Health Programs at a nearby hospital in Demopolis, is the staff psychiatrist at the Hale County Hospital and Clinic, and serves as an adjunct clinical faculty member at the University of Alabama School of Medicine and the UAB School of Medicine. Though John’s only been living in Hale County for the past twelve years, he’s made a big impact on this community. One of his latest missions has been transforming the old hotel in downtown Greensboro into a new headquarters for Project Horseshoe Farm. You can usually find him every Wednesday night charging around Lions Park doing as much physical bodily harm as is humanly possible to Horseshoe Farm Fellows and Rural Studio students while playing the absolutely innocent game of Ultimate Frisbee.

LOCAL PROFILE

r. John Dorsey, also known as the town psychiatrist, has the biggest smile you’ve ever seen and is perhaps the most energetic man in Hale County. “Dr. John” (as he is called by kids around town) is the Founder and Executive Director of Project Horseshoe Farm in Greensboro.

WHERE ARE YOU FROM? I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio

and then moved with my family to southern California when I was twelve years old. My mom and dad, my three sisters, and one of my brothers (I have seven siblings) still live in southern California. I went to a small college in southern California called Pomona College and then went on to medical school at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I completed my residency at the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, California where I specialized in psychiatry. WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO HALE COUNTY? After finishing my

residency, I moved back to southern California to be near my family. Even though I grew up in southern California, part of me always thought about and had been drawn to smaller and more personal ways of living and practicing medicine. My father is from West Virginia, and he told me that since I was a child, he always saw me becoming a small-town family medicine doctor. I started to think about the idea of moving to a small town, and then, at a conference in San Diego, I ran into another psychiatrist who was from Jackson, Alabama and who at the time was doing his residency at UAB. I started talking with him about my thoughts of moving to a small town, and he said that I ought to think about Alabama. At his encouragement, I set up some interviews and ended up getting a job at Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa. At the time, I hoped to work part-time at Bryce until I could get settled, get a feel for the state, and then eventually find a small town to move to and practice in. I packed up my car and set out for a cross-country adventure to Alabama, but when I got to Oklahoma, I got a phone call from the Administrator at Bryce telling me that they found someone to work full-time and no longer needed my services. I didn’t know what to do because without the job, I didn’t really have any good reason to be in Alabama. To gather my thoughts, I decided to go down to see my brother in Houston. When I arrived in Houston, my brother said that I needed to stay there for a while. He said a hurricane was coming through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. I had been completely disconnected from the world as I traveled cross-country, but was quickly brought back to reality when my brother showed me the video of Hurricane Katrina hitting land. At that point, all signs seemed to be telling me to go back to California. Then I got a call from the short-term stay hotel in Tuscaloosa where I had a reservation, and they told me that if I didn’t get there in twenty-four hours, they would have to give my room away because they were getting so many people coming up from New Orleans who needed a place to stay. Against my better judgment, I decided to push

forward and make an adventure of it. I got to the short-term stay motel in Tuscaloosa and they had raised the rate to $185/night. It didn’t take long to realize that if I didn’t find another place to stay quickly, I was going to spend through all of my savings. I set out each day to try to find a place to live and ended up stumbling upon the Warrior Mobile Homes sales office in Moundville. I was desperate and asked if they would rent me a mobile home, and seeing me and my California license plate, they were understandably skeptical. After speaking with me for a while and becoming convinced that I wasn’t trying to start a meth lab or hurt anyone, they directed me down to Greensboro where I discovered our incredible town and Rural Studio. WHEN DID YOU COME? September 2005. WHERE DID YOUR LOVE OF HELPING OTHERS COME FROM?

I think I have always been drawn to teaching and education, to working with kids, and to helping others, but seeing up close the struggles and suffering of people living with mental illness really drew me to committing to trying to make a difference for people who didn’t seem to get a fair shake in life. WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU’RE NOT WORKING?! I love to

play sports. I try to play tennis about three times a week and play Ultimate Frisbee with a group of people in Greensboro, including some of the Rural Studio students, every Wednesday night. TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT YOU THAT WE DON’T ALREADY KNOW! I was a contestant on the Price is Right game

show. I got to meet Bob Barker and spun a $1 on the big wheel. TELL US WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO YOU… WHO ARE YOUR HEROES?

The people I admire most are people who quietly work hard to take care of their families, help others, and contribute to their community. WHAT ARE YOUR PL ANS FOR THE FUTURE? I hope to

continue to build on the work we have been doing at Horseshoe Farm and to participate in the exciting road ahead for our community.

5TH -YE AR STUDIO PROJECTS

he 5th-year students were charged with two unique projects: transform a 105-year-old building into a place for gathering and put the 20K Home research to good use for a home for Buster.

Faunsdale Community Center Fourteen miles south of Rural Studio’s Newbern headquarters sits the small, historic town of Faunsdale, Alabama. The Faunsdale Foundation, a local non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and promoting the historic and cultural heritage of the town, approached Rural Studio to help transform one of the oldest buildings in the historic downtown into a new community center. Originally a doctor’s office, and then later City Hall, the 1905 building will be adapted and given a new life as the Faunsdale Community Center. The client hopes the new space will strengthen and empower the community by providing new resources such as high-speed internet access and opportunities for new programs like afterschool tutoring and music classes. While the existing f loor and roof need to be replaced, much of the lumber is salvageable and can be reused. In order to accommodate the new Community Center, three of the four walls will be used as a shell, allowing a completely new, independent structure to be inserted inside from the back. The new back wall will be composed all of glass, creating both a visual and physical connection to the courtyard behind the building. The courtyard will act as an extension of the building itself, allowing the two to

come together and be utilized as one large, open space. Throughout demolition, many of the original building materials have been salvaged and implemented into the design, including a roof structure built out of the repurposed heartwood pine floor and ceiling joists, lumber that is almost twice as strong as dimensional lumber sold today. The interior of the building will have an open space, which can be easily changed by furniture to adapt to whatever is happening in the Center. There will also be a small, intimate alcove looking out onto the street, as well as a kitchenette and restroom. The project is currently under construction and planned to be completed by summer 2018.

20Kv21: Buster’s Home 20Kv21 Buster’s Home is a two-bedroom dwelling focused on accessibility, active and passive energy systems, and keeping the footprint small and economical in the spirit of the original mission of the 20K Home project. Due to the vast wealth of research and construction knowledge passed down from the twenty previous iterations of the project, there was an opportunity to study both construction techniques from previously built student designs and how the clients adapted to and lived in their homes. The post-occupancy studies revealed design successes and misconceptions of the 20K project. Therefore, guidelines and parameters were extrapolated from the research, which directly responded to client behaviors and trends observed across the board, particularly in relation to furniture. For example, no matter the size of the footprint, 20K homeowners almost always utilize two couches in the living room, positioned along a wall, counter, or even in front of a door. As such, minimizing undefined circulation spaces became a major focus, and a square floor plan emerged. This will hopefully provide the most flexible scenario in accommodating varied lifestyles. A recessed porch was also centrally positioned, helping to transition circulation space from exterior, to interior and provide an outdoor space for varying activities. To further realize the goals of accessibility and energy efficiency, analyses of previous insulation systems of the building envelope (the wall, floor, and ceiling) were used to inform

design decisions. In many previous 20K Homes, for example, the foundation of choice has been to build a grid of concrete pier footings to support a wooden platform-framed flooring system. This method was widely used because of the perception that it was quick and versatile. Buster’s Home, however, is constructed with an insulated concrete slab, which should provide a test in comparing the relative material costs, energy efficiency, and construction labor between both foundation systems. Apart from the insulated slab, other passive energy strategies being utilized are a radiant barrier in the roof and to make the walls and ceilings tightly insulated. Also, a single-zone mini-split system will be enough to heat and cool this home. In order to further maximize the eff iciency of this mechanical system, a strategic plan for passive ventilation has been designed in the form of window placement and attic air movement.

5TH -YE AR STUDIO PROJECTS

Faunsdale Community Center Students Anna Daley, Grant Wright, Jenny Lomas, John Sydnor

20kv21 Busterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Home Students Ben Malaier, Carley Chastain, Janine Mwenja, Olivia Backer

F RIEND OF THE STUDIO

Andrea Oppenheimer Dean After a visit or two, Andrea Oppenheimer Dean fell under the spell cast by Rural Studio. She couldn’t resist its spirit and driving mentality, its accomplishments, and its inspired leaders — Sambo Mockbee and Andrew Freear. She’s written two books about the Studio, and ghosted another honoring its twenty-year anniversary. Her most memorable day job was as executive editor of Architecture magazine.

y relationship with Rural Studio started one autumn afternoon in 2000. Living in Washington, D.C., at the time, I managed a monthly column of criticism for Architectural Record and telephoned Sambo Mockbee to ask him to contribute an essay. I’d read about his experiment in Hale County. It tested an educational model, using design/build to teach architecture, while providing people in need with houses. Students designed and built them, employing local design principles and forms to create good-looking modern buildings. And, in the name of sustainable design, they reused discarded materials — hay bales, worn-out tires, glass bottles, retired windshields. Sambo’s ideas were sensible and morally indisputable, but his was a lonely voice at the time. Architecture schools taught “paper architecture,” abstract designs divorced from the realities of construction, the needs of clients, and the particularities of place, culture, and climate. That autumn afternoon nearly two decades ago, Sambo politely turned me down. “I’d just antagonize people,” he explained in his gravelly Mississippi drawl. Before I knew it, he asked me, “What big project you workin’ on?” I told him I’d love to write a book about Rural Studio. He encouraged me, and I was soon off to what Sambo, only half-jokingly, called Taliesin South. Like Frank Lloyd Wright, Sambo was an artist, one who presented himself

Like Frank Lloyd Wright, Sambo was an artist, one who presented himself as a “cross between a redneck and an art freak,” as one of his students commented. as a “cross between a redneck and an art freak,” as one of his students commented. The Sambo I met was a burly, bearded, big-hearted man. “I want to be over the edge, environmentally, aesthetically, and technically,” he said. His students seemed most deeply touched by his humanity and moral compass. They told me about his admonition that as architects their good-

ness was more important than their greatness, their compassion more eventful than their passion. When Sambo died at age fifty-eight in 2001, some admirers feared that Rural Studio would languish, as did Wright’s Taliesin in Wisconsin after the great iconoclast died in 1959. Instead, the Studio has flourished, thanks mostly to Sambo’s successor, the equally modest, egalitarian, and goodhearted, but more driven and disciplined Andrew Freear. He was a young studio instructor when Sambo died. “Sambo and I were good together,” he told me. “I was a sort of utilitarian socialist and he was the artist who said make it pretty.” Under Andrew, the Studio’s projects have grown in number and size to serve more people and uses. The buildings are more complex and sophisticated in appearance and function, while still maintaining strong esthetic connections to the community. “I don’t think that design/build should be a series of responses to screwups made earlier in the project,” Andrew told me. “I believe in precision, not artfully camouflaged sloppiness.” Andrew has changed the Studio by working himself to the point of exhaustion, pushing his students until he’s extracted their best programming and design efforts, and insisting on very high standards of craft. Like Sambo, however, he remains a benign architectural outlaw. My hope is that the Studio continues its role as a national model in architectural education, social responsibility, sustainability, and top-notch design – a Columbus, Indiana, of the South. At a time when well-heeled Americans are increasingly isolated from those who are down-on-their luck, Rural Studio offers a rare opportunity for university students to work with and understand impoverished rural folk. And so, why not create a museum in Newbern to showcase local artists’ work that demonstrates the talents and abilities hidden in the rural South? More practically, I hope — expect, really — that the 20K Home project becomes a commercial success, that the Studio increasingly incubates job-creating strategies, and that it remains a laboratory for exploring new construction uses for such previously disposal materials as timber thinnings. I hope, finally, that, no matter who’s at its helm, Rural Studio retains its essential character — serious, hard-working, disciplined, ambitious, a little crazy, always bold, and ethical.

Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency (2002)

Proceed and Be Bold: Rural Studio After Samuel Mockbee (2005)

Rural Studio at Twenty: Designing and Building in Hale County, Alabama (2014)

CONSULTANT PROFILES

Kellie Stokes

Don’t let this quiet gal from Birmingham fool you: Kellie Stokes has one of the most impressive resumes of anyone to ever participate in Rural Studio. She’s too modest to tell you that she went to Dartmouth for undergrad, MIT for graduate school, worked for Atelier Ten for a few years, and is now finishing her PhD at Yale — not to mention she also works with NASA. Loved by all for being both absolutely brilliant and a total and utter space cadet (obviously, hence the work with NASA). While Kellie now spends her time exploring the universe, she still hasn’t found the keys that she misplaced, regularly, somewhere in Hale County. WHERE ARE YOU FROM? Birmingham, AL.

This former Outreach student worked as a non-architect on the first 20K Home project for Elizabeth. We were all so impressed with Kellie that she was asked to stay on and instruct on Frank’s 20K Home, which was a tremendous success.

WHERE DID YOUR LOVE OF DESIGNING AND BUILDING COME FROM? My dad was an en-

gineer, artist, and craftsman. His sketches on graph paper of garages, cabins, and decks were my first exposure to the design process. I remember trying to emulate him and loving how drawing made me think differently. HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT RURAL STUDIO?

My mom met Sambo in the early days and told me about the program when I was in high school. I developed a crush on Rural Studio that I couldn’t shake for several years—all through college. Finally when I graduated, I applied to the Outreach Program. WHAT DID YOU DO AFTER YOU LEFT RURAL STUDIO AS A STUDENT? I stayed on as faculty

for one year, working with a wild-haired team of international architects on version 2 of the 20K Home. Just hadn’t gotten my fill of catfish and whiffle dust quite yet. The 20K project left me with a lot of questions about whether our design decisions—often based on rule of thumb—could be more refined, so I went back to get my masters in engineering. After graduating, I worked as an environmental consultant for the sexy design gurus at Atelier Ten and then as a research engineer at Appalachian State University. I got to model, measure, and help improve all sorts of projects—from

universities to urban parks to skyscrapers. In 2010, the world switched from being predominately rural to urban—more than half of the global population now lived in cities. In the news you read stories about buildings, entire cities in China and India being constructed, seemingly, overnight. The magnitude and pace of change— all of those houses and parks and street grids yet to be designed or built—seemed like a huge sustainability opportunity. I went back to school to study urbanization and global environmental change, and now I work as a NASA Earth Systems Science fellow studying the links between urban design and climate change.

Our greatest buildings and our greenest buildings need to be one in the same. BEST PART OF RETURNING TO HALE CO.? Re-

connecting with old friends. Getting my accent back. WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU’RE WORKING?

My personal goal for 2017 was to learn the names and locations of all 57 of the stars used for celestial navigation. That’s a time-consuming project when you live in a city and have to drive a few hours to the nearest dark sky. Apart from star-gazing, I spend time rock climbing, fixing my car, and trying to grow okra above the Ma-

son-Dixon line. TELL US WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO YOU. Climate

change is important to me. I think it’s the challenge of our time, and often worry how this uncertain future we’re writing for ourselves will affect the vulnerable and poor, how it will change the rich biodiversity in the wildlands and rivers of my home state. It’s important to me that we find a way to pivot on that. WHO ARE YOUR HEROES? A high concentra-

tion of my heroes live in Hale County. But besides those, Hans Rosling, the great Alabamian EO Wilson, and Wendell Berry. ADVICE FOR OUR STUDENTS? It is a very excit-

ing time to be an architect. We finally understand the myriad of ways that architecture matters, not just for people who live and occupy a building and the surrounding local community, but also for global sustainability. My advice is to read everything you can to try to understand these interconnections—so that your design decisions can be truly bold, not just aesthetically but also in substance. Architects, now, must not only be artists, but also scientists. Our greatest buildings and our greenest buildings need to be one in the same. FAVORITE TOOL? Chalkline. Obviously.

Emily McGlohn

If you’ve been part of Rural Studio at any point over the last eighteen years, then you probably know Emily McGlohn. After leaving Rural Studio in 2006, Emily went on to work for William McDonough + Partners, then completed a Master’s of Architecture at the University of Oregon, where she focused on building envelopes. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Mississippi State University. She now returns to the Studio as a consultant several times a year to harass Johnny Parker* and amp up our building performance with new techniques and energy audits as well as to display her remarkable fetish for Tyvek. WHERE ARE YOU FROM? Hoover, AL. Emily is a beloved alumna who famously built the Rural Heritage Center Gift Shop in Thomaston, Alabama. She was so great that we asked her to stay around, and she co-instructed the 2nd-year studios when students designed and built Willie Bell’s Home in Mason’s Bend and Michelle’s Home in Greensboro. * See Johnny Parker’s interview with Emily on Pg. 5

WHERE DID YOUR LOVE OF DESIGNING AND BUILDING COME FROM? Probably my father.

He always has a project. I’ve loved this kind of work for a long time. When most kids went to camp to ride horses and swim, I went to camp to put roofs on people’s houses and build ramps to their doors. Seriously. HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT RURAL STUDIO?

Landscape Architecture was my first major at Auburn in 1998, but after hearing Sambo Mockbee speak when I was a sophomore, I changed my major — that same day — to architecture. One of the most vivid memories I have of Rural Studio is the final presentation of my 2nd-year project to Sambo. He had a horsehair throne (I’m not exaggerating) in one of the downstairs rooms in Morrisette. He called us in the room one by one to give us his critique while sitting on his throne. He left a mark on me that day, but I’m pretty sure my rammed-earth McMansion did not impress him. HOW HAS THE STUDIO INFLUENCED YOU? My

story is familiar because I think Rural Studio influences lots of people in one way or another. In my years at Auburn I came to Newbern as often as I could and stayed as long as Andrew would let me. I met Daniel, my husband, in West Alabama. I’m now an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Mississippi State University (unsurprising), and he’s an attorney (very surprising

— if you know Daniel). The biggest influence on my life (besides my family) is Rural Studio. Cheesy but true. As my interest in buildings matured, I became fascinated with vapor retarders and air barriers — yes, really — because they confuse so many designers. My master’s thesis from the University of Oregon was about how well architects and constructors understand these layers (they don’t, by the way). Now that I’m a teacher and back in the area, I advise Rural Studio students on the proper use of retarders and barriers. Recently I convinced Andrew to buy a blower

Everyone is just trying to get by and when you understand this, life is a lot happier.

tor of the next eighteen, I’m sure Rural Studio will continue to influence my life and career. I’m so lucky that I really like what I do — teaching architecture is a privilege. I wish the same for everyone in whatever they do. BEST PART OF RETURNING TO HALE CO.? My

favorite part of visiting Hale County is seeing all my friends that work at Rural Studio and meeting the students. WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU’RE WORKING?

I have a couple of other hobbies besides blower door testing houses. Trying out new recipes on friends, especially ones with jello, occupies my weekends, and I finally taught myself to grow tomatoes. Scout, my dog, cleans the floor when I cook. TELL US WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO YOU. My fam-

ily, my dog, and hard work. door and some other building diagnostic tools so I could come over to give workshops on how to use the equipment. Guess my plan worked. I’m a featured consultant in this newsletter. Now, if I could only get him to buy that ocean front property in Arizona... I teach all aspects of building performance at Mississippi State. There I have a team of student researchers called Audit Squad. They conduct their own building performance research and help me in the Mississippi Delta to understand the health and financial burdens of high air infiltration rates in low-income housing. If the last eighteen years are an indica-

WHO ARE YOUR HEROES? The gods of

building science — Joseph Lstiburek and Dr. John Straube. They’ve written all the books I love the most, and I really hope I get to meet them one day. ADVICE FOR OUR STUDENTS? Be nice to

people. This took me a long time to learn. Teaching has helped me see that everyone is just trying to get by and when you understand this, life is a lot happier. FAVORITE TOOL? Corkscrew.

ALUMNI PROFILES

Coming Home to Roast

ural Studio attracts an atypical flock of students, and if they aren’t nutty when they arrive, they most certainly are once they leave. Each year, we ask a handful of these inimitable characters to travel back to Hale County for Soup Roast weekend and share with the students and staff their remarkable accomplishments and tales from their adventures in the world beyond.

John McCabe

Leia Price Currie

Drew Merkle

Connely Farr

My Rural Studio experience is the foundation for why I chose to be a design educator. The lessons learned there have influenced me and ultimately my students far beyond the boundaries of Hale County. I use that knowledge to create humble global citizens that will become our future creative leaders of the world.”

Rural Studio respects the natural connection between the thinker and the maker, software and hardware, individual and team, community members and their built environment, architect and service. I found that once I experienced that connection, I looked for it over and over again.”

Rural Studio is home to me. Every time I go back, it’s slightly different and everything has aged a little more, but I fall right back in time with the heartbeat of Hale County. I am constantly reminded of how much I owe to the place and the experiences had.”

My experience at Rural Studio taught me the importance of trying to set aside preconceived notions and listening to others. I still struggle with this at times. But when I challenge myself to set aside these notions in a focused effort to be teachable and part of something bigger than me, something inherently good happens, way better than I could have come up with on my own.”

WORK: Aether Global Learning — A think tank for transformational learning and leadership LIVE: Chattanooga, TN RS PROJECTS: Lewis House, HERO Classrooms, Spencer House (2nd-year, spring semester 1999), HERO Knowledge Center (5th-year, 2002) FAVORITE TOOL: Pry bar — it helps me move, adjust, and persuade, all the while keeping things in good working condition ADVICE FOR CURRENT STUDENTS: Embrace failure as an important part of the creative process. Actively experience things that scare you and are outside of your comfort zone. Develop a network of mentors that act as guiding lights throughout your life.

WORK: GLUCK+ LIVE: New York, NY RS PROJECTS: Sanders Dudley House (2nd-year spring semester 2001), Newbern Volunteer Fire Station (5th-year, 2004) FAVORITE TOOL: The right one for the job at hand. ADVICE FOR CURRENT STUDENTS: Examine the wheel; understand it, dissect it — but don’t reinvent it. There is a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips — use it!

WORK: Zaha Hadid Architects LIVE: London, United Kingdom RS PROJECTS: Willie Bell House (2nd-year, spring semester 2005) and Bridge House (5th-year, 2008) FAVORITE TOOL: Johnny Parker’s plasma cutter ADVICE FOR CURRENT STUDENTS: Don’t become complacent in work or life.

Cassandra Kellogg & Zane Morgan

Kerry Larkin

Phillip March Jones

Rural Studio had a profound effect on my life and career, leading me to new artists, ideas, and ways of thinking about community.” WORK: Andrew Edlin Gallery LIVE: New York, NY RS PROJECTS: 20Kv01 Elizabeth’s Home (Outreach, 2005) FAVORITE TOOL: Hammer ADVICE FOR CURRENT STUDENTS: Turn off your cellphone (it’s probably out of range anyways) and enjoy your time there. It will be over before you know it.

WORK: Ramsay Worden Architects (Project Manager) LIVE: Vancouver, BC, Canada RS PROJECTS: Music Man House (2nd-year, fall 2002), Hale County Animal Shelter (5th-year, 2006) FAVORITE TOOL: Pencil (with an eraser) ADVICE FOR CURRENT STUDENTS: I guess my advice would be to really slow down and cherish the experience of RS. The long nights in the Red Barn, the endless questions from critics, the freezing cold & incredible heat, messing up & learning how to do it right, sitting on a front porch, sunsets & sunrises. Don’t get distracted by finishing. There are diamonds hidden in the doing.

Rosannah Sandoval

My experience at Rural Studio has influenced me not only at every turn in my career, but also—and more importantly—my life. It’s a reminder of what is meaningful to me—place, community, connection. From how I choose projects to how I spend my free time, I always try to look at it through this lens.” WORK: Comma Workshop LIVE: Boulder, CO RS PROJECTS: The Carpet House (Outreach, 2002) FAVORITE TOOL: I like using constructions tools out of context—a laser square or framing square to square up a quilt, clamps to secure a quilt while sewing... I find many things in my toolbox are equally useful in my sewing studio. ADVICE FOR CURRENT STUDENTS: Connect with the community beyond the neighborhood where your project is located. Get to know the locals. Get out and explore.

Our experiences at the Rural Studio have been invaluable. We have been taught that design at all scales is important and the success of a project depends on the details.” WORK: BLACKSHOP and Bilt LIVE: Birmingham, AL RS PROJECTS: Cassandra — St. Luke’s Church, Phase 1 (2nd-year, fall semester 2006), Safe House Museum (5th-year, 2010) Zane — St. Luke’s Church, Phase 2 (2nd-year, spring semester 2008), Newbern Town Hall (5th-year, 2011) FAVORITE TOOL: Cassandra: hand planer Zane: 6” metal combination square ADVICE FOR CURRENT STUDENTS: Eyes on the prize.

My understanding that meaningful architecture is deeply rooted in its context was planted at Rural Studio.” WORK: Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Architect, Parsons School of Design, School of Constructed Environments, Part-Time Faculty LIVE: New York, NY RS PROJECTS: Willie Bell House (2nd-year, spring semester 2005) FAVORITE TOOL: Welding Torch ADVICE FOR CURRENT STUDENTS: Architecture school is your chance to explore your design skills beyond the assignments given to you — ask the hard questions and keep digging.

STAF F INITIATIVES

Lions Park: A Decade and Beyond Rural Studio celebrated a decade of student work at Lions Park since its first involvement in 2006. Today, ten phases of projects have been completed: baseball fields, bathrooms, surfaces, a concession stand, a skatepark, a playground, a scout hut, landscaping, fitness equipment, and shade pavilions. Throughout the years, each team has advanced Lions Parks from not much more than a recreational baseball field into a multi-purpose green space for Hale County and surrounding communities. According to data collectors along the walking trail which circle the park, an estimated 4,200 people per year visit just to walk the trail. That does not include baseball season and other events. In 2015, the City of Greensboro created the Parks and Recreation Board to organize activity schedules and to oversee maintenance not only for Lions Park, but for all five Greensboro city parks and the Greensboro Recreation Center. After two years, the Parks and Recreation Board has been able to observe the maintenance for Lions Park. The Studio and the City of Greensboro have partnered to set up a comprehensive maintenance schedule that focuses on the four seasons of the year. Each season presents its own challenges, whether it be mowing the grass in the warmer and rainy season, or controlling the water in the offseason during the cooler months. The idea is to prioritize the ground crew’s task for fall, spring, winter, and summer months so they can effectively organize their resources. There are multiple organizations at Lions Park who have added some recent updates to the park. The City of Greensboro purchased and installed four new basketball goals for public use. The Greensboro Baseball Association is working on a local grant to upgrade the surfaces for the baseball fields and to purchase equipment. Also, the Alabama County Extension Office received a grant to replace the sign with an updated logo at their Hale County building, which resides at the park. With help from the Studio, the new sign was installed and helps to improves visibility for the extension office.

Photo: Timothy Hursley

Newbern Library

20K Home Product Line Update

The Newbern Library is entering its third year of service for the local patrons and book enthusiast in Hale County. Currently, there are over 300 patrons who have access to 7,000 books in catalogued rotation. TThe library also offers patrons technology resources such as laptop computers, internet service, and other digital media platforms. So far, the library has logged 10,000 hours of technology usage. In response to these numbers, the Newbern Library has been chosen as one of seven libraries statewide to participate in a pilot project of the Alabama Public Library Service and the Alabama Supercomputer Authority called “Small Community Internet Upgrade.” This project will enable the library to upgrade its Internet connectivity speed from the current 1.5 Mbps to 10 Mbps with APLS funding for three years. Since connectivity is a big issue in this community, it is a giant step in the value our library offers to its citizenry. These numbers and resources will continue to grow as the Newbern Library Board, the Friends of Newbern Library, and Rural Studio continue to push for more after-school programs, job training, and space for extracurricular events. One of the major after-school programs was the 2nd Annual Summer Reading Program. This week-long program exposed young adults to reading, writing, and hands-on craft workshops with local teachers. The theme of this year was “Building a Better Tomorrow.” The Newbern Library also hosted resume writing classes for patrons pursuing outside employment and computer training for senior citizens. On the horizon, the Newbern Library Board is working to mount a major event for a William Christenberry exhibit or one related to the Alabama Bicentennial.

This year the 20K Home Product Line has enjoyed a very active, but somewhat silent phase of development. Leveraging the extensive amount of knowledge and insight gained through our initial field test partnerships and public builds over the previous two years, we established a comprehensive, five-year work plan to bring the 20K Home to market. While continuing the Studio’s research into the expansion of product line prototypes, this work plan also articulates our strategy to develop a host of wide-reaching partnerships that work together to address the myriad of complex issues that stand in the way of small, affordable home ownership. These issues are systemic, and, as we have learned over the years, extend well beyond the bounds of the traditional “brick and mortar” problems which the Architecture profession most often faces. As such, our proposal is an ambitious one, requiring many disciplines to work in synthesis to engage in every aspect of procuring the home. These emerging partnerships span the disciplines of financial lending and insurability institutions, credit and educational bureaus, code and zoning enforcement entities, environmental and constructability consultants, as well as subsidy and capacity building programs across the spectrum of private, nonprofit, and state and federal agencies. Securing the resources and commitment required from these partners is no small lift, but we remain persistently optimistic that 2018 will prove a remarkably pivotal year in ultimately bringing the idea of the 20K Home to fruition. While the arc of the project has indeed been long, and by working in conjunction with these partners the process continues to expand, the trajectory remains the same: our ultimate goal continues to be the development of a unified, comprehensive process of small-home procurement that anyone can afford and that will benefit anyone who might want it. Stay tuned!

Awards

AWARDS & PRESS

Freear Receives Harvard University Loeb Fellowship Rural Studio Director Andrew Freear has been selected as a recipient of the Loeb Fellowship at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University for the 2017–2018 academic year. Loeb Fellows are selected from the broadest array of influential design practitioners, thought leaders, activists, and policy makers from around the globe whose sustained careers have positively impacted the environment and communities in which they live and work. This year’s Loeb Fellows’ expertise range from dealing with protracted humanitarian and environmental crises, food insecurity, access to dignified and affordable housing, social engagement, and economic development - all issues central to the mission and values of Rural Studio. This year the nine Fellows are from as far afield as Switzerland, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Cape Town, South Africa and as close as New Orleans, Chicago, and of course, Hale County! Loeb Fellows are broadly engaged with the academic and research community at Harvard’s GSD. Working together to share and develop innovative ideas, Fellows participate in classes, workshops, roundtable discussions, seminars, lectures, and study tours offered throughout Harvard and MIT’s network of professional and academic schools. For one year they read, write, work with professors, and mentor students, all with the goal of expanding their own professional horizons, honing their perspective, and clearly defining their focus as agents of change in the organizations they lead. Rural Studio welcomes the Loeb Fellowship and the opportunity it brings for Andrew to advance our commitment towards the resilience of rural communities and to examine the growing gulf between these communities and their urban counterparts. Specifically, Freear will seek to push forward the 20K House initiative’s goal of providing affordable, equity-building, locally sourced, sustainable, and dignified rural housing.

Rural Studio Recognized as a 2017 Social Design Circle Member by The Curry Stone Design Prize Every year the Curry Stone Design Prize honors innovative projects that use design to address pressing social justice issues. For their 10th anniversary, the Prize chose a group of 100 of the “most compelling social design practitioners of the last decade” to become members of what they’re calling The Social Design Circle. Rural Studio was chosen to be a member of The Circle and given an honorarium and an award.

Press

2016

2017

Rural Studio. Forum Architecture As Art — Exhibiting Architecture, Lotus | Catalog | 2 016

Newbern Library by Rural Studio Architectural Record | Web & Magazine jul 2 , 2 0 1 7

The Work of Rural Studio Reporting From The Front: Biennale Architettura Exhibition 2016 | Catalog | 2 0 1 6

Introducing the 2018 Loeb Fellows Loeblog | Web | may 1 1 , 2 0 1 7

Answering the Challenge: Rural Studio’s 20K House Firenze Architettura | Book | 2 0 1 6 Architecture as Art 2016

baq 2016

How the 94 Residents of Faunsdale are Saving Their Spot-In-The-Road Town Al.com | Web | dec 6 , 2 0 1 6 Great Detail: Piers Taylor on Rural Studio’s Mason’s Bend Community Centre Architects Journal | Web | dec 6 , 2 0 1 6 Lions Park: Architecture Students Transforming a Community Building Design + Construction | Web nov 8 , 2 0 1 6

Lotus 2016

Slideshow: Rural Studio’s Social Designs for Milan and Venice Architectural Record | Web | nov 0 2 , 2 0 1 6 APLA Welcomes New Hires Studioapla | Web | fall 2 0 1 6 Xavier Vendrell Steps In as Rural Studio’s Acting Director Studioapla | Web | fall 2 0 1 6 The Theatre of Usefull Domus | Web | oct 2 6 , 2 0 1 6

Designbuild Education 2017

Homegrown: Rural Studio’s Contextual Approach to Rural Housing Impact Design Hub | Web | oct 1 9 , 2 0 1 6

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