Auburn University Program Looks to Revive, Build Resiliency

Across Alabama, the landscape is littered with abandoned shops, rusted-out factories and dilapidated homes without hope of revival in small towns that have seen better days. However, a program at Auburn University aims to reverse the state’s rural decline.

Rural Studio, a College of Architecture, Design and Construction program at the university, is an award-winning effort that uses architectural design to build resiliency in rural communities. It sits at the crossroads of theoretical academia and practical application.

According to the Alabama Department of Public Health, 55 of the state’s 67 counties are rural, and they hold almost 44 percent of the entire population. Compared to the national average of 19 percent, Alabama is one of America’s most rural states.

Living in a rural community presents a breadth of challenges to residents, such as a lack of access to quality food, healthcare, broadband infrastructure and dependable housing.

Based in Newbern, a town of 221 residents, Rural Studio has become a member of the rural communities it was created over 30 years ago to support.

“I think I’ve learned more at Rural Studio than I have at any other studio within the architecture program,” Laurel Holloway, a recent graduate of the program, told The Auburn Plainsman, a student-run news source at the university.

Holloway is a member of a four-person team that began the “Patriece’s Home” project in September, the fall semester of their last year at Auburn. The goal is to provide community members with a maintainable two-story house for them and their family.

The team designed the building’s concept, coordinated with the client and contractors, laid the foundation, and will drive the final nail.

Rural Studio builds all its projects following this model, according to the Plainsman.

“Normally, architecture students just draw stuff,” explained Andrew Freear, professor of architecture and director of Rural Studio. “They’re getting an incredible experience, learning how to put something together and manage a project, manage a budget and manage conversations with consultants.”

Students in the program also take support classes, like a history of wooden buildings, or they learn the hands-on skills necessary to complete a job, such as welding and carpentry.

“The students get remarkable hands-on opportunities out here that’s quite amazing,” Freear added. “I would have loved to have been out here as a student.”

The “Patriece’s Home” team of students will stay with the project until it is completed despite graduating next spring before their client can move in. Freear, though, told the Plainsman that it is common for students in the program to continue their work past graduation — so much so that they are lovingly called “leftovers.”