Rural Studio Newsletter 2018

SINCE 1993

PRINTED IN OPELIK A , AL

All of Rural Studio’s News from Hale County

VOL . 7

2017–2018

BACK ON THE BLOCK...

C AT C H U P W I T H T H E T E A M T H AT J U S T W O N ’ T Q U I T !

SHADE, S H E LTE R, AND HEADTO-HEAD HOMES!

COMMUNITY CENTER WITH APPEARANCES BY “ T H E FA U N S D A L E F O U R ” JE N N Y LO M A S

ANNA DA L E Y

JO H N SY D N O R

GRANT W R IG H T

P A G E 11

20KV22 HOME

5th-year students zero in on research on the latest iteration of the 20K Home, version 22, by analyzing the affordability of living in a 20K. The team is building a revised version of Dave's Home and comparing its costs of operation with the baseline version in this home versus home showdown.

FRESH ON THE SCENE

3RD YEAR

HORSESHOE FARM HUB COURT YARD

Project Horseshoe Farm, a local nonprofit, gets a much-needed update at their headquarters, The Hub, in downtown Greensboro’s old historic hotel. This student team is designing and building a courtyard space for their home base to support and facilitate their operations and community outreach programs.

DR AWING • DESIGN • CONSTRUCTION

HORSESHOE FARM HOMES Project Horseshoe Farm is 3 R D -Y E A R S T U D I O Visiting Assistant Professor Emily McGlohn and Instructor Alex Therrien lead two semesters of 3rd-year students to build a new home for Newbern native Ree Zinnerman. The house is an updated version of Joanne's Home, which is from the 20K Home Product Line. Find out on page 04 what makes this new version different from the original.

dedicated to improving the quality of life of its vulnerable neighbors. To help them do this, a team of 5th-year students are building new supportive living units for some of Greensboro's women to be able to live independently.

EXCITING NEW COLL ABOR ATORS • SA M E GREAT IDEA FULL STORY

UPDATE: 20K INITIATIVE PAGE 07 EXCITING NEW COLL ABOR ATORS • SA M E GREAT IDEA

OLD FRIEND

NEW HIRE

• UPDATES FROM THE TEA M •

• UPDATES FROM THE TEA M •

PAGE 08- 09

HISTORY & THEORY Every Monday afternoon legendary Rural Studio instructor Dick Hudgens leads 3rd-years on expeditions across the state in search of historic buildings to explore and sketch.

Students learn the vernacular, context, and the history of Alabama's built rural landscapes, culminating in a Beaux-Arts watercolor. See who won the "Best Watercolor" award from the spring semester's class on page 05.

DESSEIN ELECTIVE

Watch the chips fly in Steve Long's woodworking class. Wood is an important material for Rural Studio projects, and students gain valuable insight and familiarity with wood not just through building an iconic chair, but by analyzing and designing the process of its construction.

PAGE 0 4 - 05

CO NSU LTANT PRO FI LE

S TAF F PRO FILE

Mackenzie Stagg

CHERYL NOEL & R AVI RICKER

N E W EST M EM B ER OF THE

•

ENVIRONMENT

•

CONGRATULATIONS On the Recently Completed

2 0 K v 21

ON BUILDING CODES, PUNK ROCK, & TURKISH REBELS

R UR AL ST U DI O T EAM EQUITY

BUSTER’S HOME

HARD WORK

PAGE 06

PA G E 12

Jim Turnipseed

Steve Gentry

FRIEND OF THE STUDIO

FRIEND OF THE STUDIO

EQUIPMENT & SERVICE

Rural Studio lost a dear friend and supporter, Steve Gentry, on November 5, 2017. Andrew Freear remembers his one-of-a-kind spirit and pays tribute to Steve's dedication to his civic duty, his love of his Hale County, and his determination to make the world a better place.

STRONG TIES • THREADED ROD • WASHERS • SCREWS BOLTS • SCREWS • ANCHORS • AND SO MUCH MORE!

PAG E 10

PAG E 10

VIEW THE MUGS OF OUR BELOVED STUDENTS, FACULTY, & STAFF

The 20K is finally all grown up with this, the 21st version of the 20K Home: Buster's Home, which celebrated its ribbon cutting in September 2017. Being all grown up, the student team behind Buster's Home wanted to look back in order to move forward.

By examining the previous versions of the 20K, the team responded to success and misconceptions about how people actually live in 20K homes.

The team also wanted to hold true to the original spirit of the 20K Home by keeping the home's footprint small and economical. Despite challenge of keeping the house small, Buster's Home is a two-bedroom model with an emphasis on accessibility.

PAGE 03

PAG E 16

F ROM R E T T OR LE IRECthTe D E H T ive s

G m Xavier ’s Rundown fro l a A n nu u n t y o Hale C

PAGE 02

“B EEN TH ER E ... DON E TH AT !”

ALUMNI PROFILES C ATC H I N G UP WI TH OUR FORMER S TUDEN TS

WILL HOLMAN

JEFF JOHNSTON

K AT I E B RYA N JOHNSTON

RENNIE JONES

PAUL KARDOUS

JANE SLOSS

PA G E 13

THESE BLADES SURE DO...

“STAY SHARP!” PA G E 14

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.

02

Auburn University is an equal opportunity educational institution/employer.

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

D

ear friends, Greetings from Newbern, I hope this finds y’all well. I guess if I’m writing this letter then I survived one more year … and that means that I haven’t sunk Rural Studio!

Yes, Andrew is back and will again take the rudder. I’m excited because this is why I came to Newbern: to work with him. In fact, he is back with a lot of energy after his sabbatical and with a lot of new ideas for the Studio and its future.

I think the Loeb Fellowship has been an amazing opportunity and a fascinating adventure for him. He tells us he was inspired there, so he must have learned a few things from all those wise people from Harvard. To have spent some time outside the Studio and reflect on it with some perspective and distance has allowed him to look at it in a different way—something that is impossible to do when we are immersed in our crazy everyday life here. So welcome back, AF! It’s been another incredible year at the Studio, with a lot of exciting news. On the “Studio gossip” front, Emily McGlohn, the only person in the world who has been in almost all possible positions at Rural Studio—2nd-year student, 5th-year student, instructor, consultant, and Visiting Assistant Professor—has been silly enough to accept a permanent position with us as Assistant Professor. Yes, it is true, and we are very happy to have her join the team again!

Also, Mackenzie Stagg has returned as Visiting Assistant Professor as part of the team led by Rusty Smith that is working on the development of the 20K Initiative. about 20K Homes, Welcome back, Mackenzie! Talking last November we had a visit from the entire leadership team at Fannie Mae. The result of that visit was an agreement to collaborate with Fannie Mae, which will help to develop the 20K Initiative and push the houses toward the market. Thanks to the efforts of Rusty, we also got a big chunk of money from the University President to support and develop some research at Rural Studio—more news about this coming soon.

Steve Long has been following me all year to be sure that I give the right instructions to the students—well I am not sure if he was following me or I was following him, as I was not sure if I was going in the right direction. Natalie has gotten busier than ever answering millions of emails and phone calls per day. Eric has been enjoying the greenhouse where there is finally something green inside. Chef Cat has been preparing food and telling me jokes that I still don’t understand, even though they are the same as last year. Brenda and Gayle have been very busy keeping things up and making sure that I don’t mess up the budget. And Doris continues helping around the Morrisette property, all the while not knowing that when Andrew comes back he will create messes everywhere he stays for more than five minutes. Johnny Parker and Mason have been busy with our facilities and construction sites, but mostly they are busy playing with all the new trucks, trailers, dumpers, and other gadgets that they asked me to buy this year before Andrew came back.

Professors Dick Hudgens and Joe Farruggia continue with their visits and trips: Dick with our 3rd-year students going around West Alabama sketching and studying his favorite old buildings, and Joe traveling back and forth between Chicago to help our students make our buildings stand up. Emily and Alex did a very good job teaching the 3rd-Year studio. They worked very well together—we didn’t have any doubt about that—but finally we discovered at Halloween that they are actually twin sisters!

Melissa and the Development team in Auburn are celebrating the completion of the Because This Is Auburn comprehensive campaign which successfully ended Dec. 2017. It is with great honor that we celebrate that Rural Studio had the most individual donors than any other single program on campus during the campaign. The university featured the Studio’s participation by placing advertisements throughout the Atlanta airport generating more interest in the program. Your small donations matter, a lot.

In addition, several estate gifts were bequeathed to Rural Studio making our future more secure. We appreciate your support.

As part of our five-week workshops at the beginning of the fall semester, Frank Harmon joined us this year to lead the workshop on sketching, which will be a new tradition at Rural Studio. As it was last year, this workshop was a blast: three very intensive days of walking around and sketching in many different places. Unfortunately, Dan Wheeler couldn’t be a part of it this year, but I am sure that he will be back next year. During the rest of the workshops students got to engage with Julia Capomaggi, Jake LaBarre, Dason Whitsett, David Hill, Danny Wicke, Mike Newman, Katrina Van Valkenburgh, Cheryl Noel, and Ravi Ricker as well as Joe Farruggia and Mike Hosey who did the OSHA training class.

In addition to the workshops, we had visits and lectures from Steve Badanes, Jim Adamson, Dan Wheeler, Peter Gluck, Pete Landon, Lorcan O’Herlihy, Coleman Coker, Worn Jerabek Wiltse Architects, Jennifer Yoos, Anne Duvall, and Perky Bros!

This year, one of the 5th-year student teams continued the exploration of the small, affordable home with 20K version 22, an

exploration not only about affordable-to-build costs but also about affordable living. And the other two projects were with Project Horseshoe Farm, a community-based non-profit in Greensboro, and its director, and our friend, John Dorsey. One of these projects is the Project Horseshoe Farm Hub Courtyard, a design for the courtyard space in the historic hotel in Greensboro, which serves as the hub for Horseshoe Farm’s administration and outreach.

The other project is the Project Horseshoe Farm Homes, supportive and affordable housing units for women with disabilities and mental illness in Greensboro.

The 3rd-Year studio led by Emily and Alex built a new version of Joanne’s Home for Ree Zinnerman in Newbern.

In September we celebrated the completion of 20Kv21 Buster’s Home, a new iteration of the 20K research project that explores a two-bedroom home that is accessible and inspired by the rigor, restraint, and refinement of the 20K product line.

At Soup Roast last year IT SNOWED!!! We made lots of snow angels around Newbern since we couldn’t drive on the icy roads.

We ended up moving the alumni lectures to Red Barn, where we heard from some extraordinary alumni as well as usual suspects and legends Steve Badanes and Jim Adamson.

In our community we lost Steve Gentry last fall. Steve was an amazing person, deeply involved in the community, a good friend of Rural Studio, and a key player for two very important past projects: The Greensboro Farmers Market and the Greensboro Boys & Girls Club. He was always thinking about what he could do next to better his community. One of the last times I talked with him, over lunch with him and Andrew, he had a new project in mind. He wanted to build a community garden near the Farmers Market, a place where the community can grow produce and serve as an educational tool for young people and the kids . . . I hope that sometime we can make his dream happen.

T he Me rc a n tile has new owners, Todd and Mary Catherine McGilberry, with their daughter Cailin They started last March and are workBamberg. ing very hard to keep the place up and running and feed us with their Friday lunch special—check it out! We wish them all the best in this new adventure.

And yes, it is true: last June, our hero Patrick Braxton got married. We all wish him and his new wife Freda, all the happiness in the world.

This year, as always, Andrew, Rusty, Emily, Mackenzie, and I were invited to give lectures all around the country and to distant parts of the world. Between the five of us, we traveled to Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Washington DC, Vermont, West Virginia, Brazil, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.

We ended the year with our traditional Pig Roast celebration. The t-shirt and postcard design, by Perky Bros out of Nashville, was a tribute to Sambo’s Whiffle Dust, the traditional spreading of which is getting better and better at each Pig Roast, thanks to Chip Spencer’s genius cannon invention. Tom Kundig’s commencement speech was, like his buildings, very well-crafted and as precise as a Swiss watch. The students were roasted slowly, one by one, and some parents were very surprised when they demonstrated some of their unknown hidden skills on stage. The fireworks were fantastic, thanks as always to Johnny. The night ended with a great and energetic performance by The Grasshopper String Band of Alabama, from Marion Junction, which is comprised of Chip Spencer and his two kids, V.K. (she plays fiddle and sings beautifully, and she graduated in May from The Alabama School of Fine Art and will start college at University of Alabama with a focus in music therapy) and Mac (playing electric guitar and preforming for the first time at Pig Roast with the band), Berry Surret, and the young drummer Reed Surret.

If you are still interested and want to stay current with what is going on, check out the project blogs on our website (www.ruralstudioblogs.com), where you will see the official everyday life of the Studio. Of course, if you want to know the real story, come visit us. We can have lunch together at the Mercantile and tell you all the gossip.

We want to thank the continued support of the college, our community, and our donors; without them none of this would be possible.

I want to thank Dean Vini Nathan, Head of School Christian Dagg, and Andrew for having the confidence and trust in me to do this job. It has been an amazing and challenging experience, and I have learned a lot. I also want to thank Mary for her support over the last two years. I think she is very happy, since I will have thousands fewer emails, so I will have more time to talk with her.

Finally, I want to thank all the faculty and staff of Rural Studio for helping me to survive my second year!

All the best and kisses,

Xavier Vendrell Professor, Acting Director

03

RECENTLY COMPLETED: BUSTER’S HOME

RIBBON CUTTING

BUSTER’S HOME

Last fall we celebrated the completion of Buster’s Home, 20Kv21, with a ribbon cutting ceremony followed by a BBQ dinner with friends, neighbors, faculty, staff, students, and their families. The design of the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home 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 project.

JOIN US AS WE CELEBRATE BUSTER’S HOMECOMING AND ANOTHER 20K PROJECT FINISHED

Plan 20Kv21 Buster’s home plan is a two-bedroom, one-bath iteration of the 20K project.

Ribbon Cutting Buster celebrates the completion of his new home.

Buster’s Home The finished home, 20Kv21 Buster’s Home.

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 live 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 House, 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 which are 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 efficiency of this mechanical system, a strategic plan for passive ventilation has been designed in the form of window placement and attic air movement.

Thank you to Ben Malaier, Carley Chastain, Janine Mwenja, and Olivia Backer for making a beautiful new home for Buster!

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.

02

Auburn University is an equal opportunity educational institution/employer.

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

D

ear friends, Greetings from Newbern, I hope this finds y’all well. I guess if I’m writing this letter then I survived one more year … and that means that I haven’t sunk Rural Studio!

Yes, Andrew is back and will again take the rudder. I’m excited because this is why I came to Newbern: to work with him. In fact, he is back with a lot of energy after his sabbatical and with a lot of new ideas for the Studio and its future.

I think the Loeb Fellowship has been an amazing opportunity and a fascinating adventure for him. He tells us he was inspired there, so he must have learned a few things from all those wise people from Harvard. To have spent some time outside the Studio and reflect on it with some perspective and distance has allowed him to look at it in a different way—something that is impossible to do when we are immersed in our crazy everyday life here. So welcome back, AF! It’s been another incredible year at the Studio, with a lot of exciting news. On the “Studio gossip” front, Emily McGlohn, the only person in the world who has been in almost all possible positions at Rural Studio—2nd-year student, 5th-year student, instructor, consultant, and Visiting Assistant Professor—has been silly enough to accept a permanent position with us as Assistant Professor. Yes, it is true, and we are very happy to have her join the team again!

Also, Mackenzie Stagg has returned as Visiting Assistant Professor as part of the team led by Rusty Smith that is working on the development of the 20K Initiative. about 20K Homes, Welcome back, Mackenzie! Talking last November we had a visit from the entire leadership team at Fannie Mae. The result of that visit was an agreement to collaborate with Fannie Mae, which will help to develop the 20K Initiative and push the houses toward the market. Thanks to the efforts of Rusty, we also got a big chunk of money from the University President to support and develop some research at Rural Studio—more news about this coming soon.

Steve Long has been following me all year to be sure that I give the right instructions to the students—well I am not sure if he was following me or I was following him, as I was not sure if I was going in the right direction. Natalie has gotten busier than ever answering millions of emails and phone calls per day. Eric has been enjoying the greenhouse where there is finally something green inside. Chef Cat has been preparing food and telling me jokes that I still don’t understand, even though they are the same as last year. Brenda and Gayle have been very busy keeping things up and making sure that I don’t mess up the budget. And Doris continues helping around the Morrisette property, all the while not knowing that when Andrew comes back he will create messes everywhere he stays for more than five minutes. Johnny Parker and Mason have been busy with our facilities and construction sites, but mostly they are busy playing with all the new trucks, trailers, dumpers, and other gadgets that they asked me to buy this year before Andrew came back.

Professors Dick Hudgens and Joe Farruggia continue with their visits and trips: Dick with our 3rd-year students going around West Alabama sketching and studying his favorite old buildings, and Joe traveling back and forth between Chicago to help our students make our buildings stand up. Emily and Alex did a very good job teaching the 3rd-Year studio. They worked very well together—we didn’t have any doubt about that—but finally we discovered at Halloween that they are actually twin sisters!

Melissa and the Development team in Auburn are celebrating the completion of the Because This Is Auburn comprehensive campaign which successfully ended Dec. 2017. It is with great honor that we celebrate that Rural Studio had the most individual donors than any other single program on campus during the campaign. The university featured the Studio’s participation by placing advertisements throughout the Atlanta airport generating more interest in the program. Your small donations matter, a lot.

In addition, several estate gifts were bequeathed to Rural Studio making our future more secure. We appreciate your support.

As part of our five-week workshops at the beginning of the fall semester, Frank Harmon joined us this year to lead the workshop on sketching, which will be a new tradition at Rural Studio. As it was last year, this workshop was a blast: three very intensive days of walking around and sketching in many different places. Unfortunately, Dan Wheeler couldn’t be a part of it this year, but I am sure that he will be back next year. During the rest of the workshops students got to engage with Julia Capomaggi, Jake LaBarre, Dason Whitsett, David Hill, Danny Wicke, Mike Newman, Katrina Van Valkenburgh, Cheryl Noel, and Ravi Ricker as well as Joe Farruggia and Mike Hosey who did the OSHA training class.

In addition to the workshops, we had visits and lectures from Steve Badanes, Jim Adamson, Dan Wheeler, Peter Gluck, Pete Landon, Lorcan O’Herlihy, Coleman Coker, Worn Jerabek Wiltse Architects, Jennifer Yoos, Anne Duvall, and Perky Bros!

This year, one of the 5th-year student teams continued the exploration of the small, affordable home with 20K version 22, an

exploration not only about affordable-to-build costs but also about affordable living. And the other two projects were with Project Horseshoe Farm, a community-based non-profit in Greensboro, and its director, and our friend, John Dorsey. One of these projects is the Project Horseshoe Farm Hub Courtyard, a design for the courtyard space in the historic hotel in Greensboro, which serves as the hub for Horseshoe Farm’s administration and outreach.

The other project is the Project Horseshoe Farm Homes, supportive and affordable housing units for women with disabilities and mental illness in Greensboro.

The 3rd-Year studio led by Emily and Alex built a new version of Joanne’s Home for Ree Zinnerman in Newbern.

In September we celebrated the completion of 20Kv21 Buster’s Home, a new iteration of the 20K research project that explores a two-bedroom home that is accessible and inspired by the rigor, restraint, and refinement of the 20K product line.

At Soup Roast last year IT SNOWED!!! We made lots of snow angels around Newbern since we couldn’t drive on the icy roads.

We ended up moving the alumni lectures to Red Barn, where we heard from some extraordinary alumni as well as usual suspects and legends Steve Badanes and Jim Adamson.

In our community we lost Steve Gentry last fall. Steve was an amazing person, deeply involved in the community, a good friend of Rural Studio, and a key player for two very important past projects: The Greensboro Farmers Market and the Greensboro Boys & Girls Club. He was always thinking about what he could do next to better his community. One of the last times I talked with him, over lunch with him and Andrew, he had a new project in mind. He wanted to build a community garden near the Farmers Market, a place where the community can grow produce and serve as an educational tool for young people and the kids . . . I hope that sometime we can make his dream happen.

T he Me rc a n tile has new owners, Todd and Mary Catherine McGilberry, with their daughter Cailin They started last March and are workBamberg. ing very hard to keep the place up and running and feed us with their Friday lunch special—check it out! We wish them all the best in this new adventure.

And yes, it is true: last June, our hero Patrick Braxton got married. We all wish him and his new wife Freda, all the happiness in the world.

This year, as always, Andrew, Rusty, Emily, Mackenzie, and I were invited to give lectures all around the country and to distant parts of the world. Between the five of us, we traveled to Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Washington DC, Vermont, West Virginia, Brazil, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.

We ended the year with our traditional Pig Roast celebration. The t-shirt and postcard design, by Perky Bros out of Nashville, was a tribute to Sambo’s Whiffle Dust, the traditional spreading of which is getting better and better at each Pig Roast, thanks to Chip Spencer’s genius cannon invention. Tom Kundig’s commencement speech was, like his buildings, very well-crafted and as precise as a Swiss watch. The students were roasted slowly, one by one, and some parents were very surprised when they demonstrated some of their unknown hidden skills on stage. The fireworks were fantastic, thanks as always to Johnny. The night ended with a great and energetic performance by The Grasshopper String Band of Alabama, from Marion Junction, which is comprised of Chip Spencer and his two kids, V.K. (she plays fiddle and sings beautifully, and she graduated in May from The Alabama School of Fine Art and will start college at University of Alabama with a focus in music therapy) and Mac (playing electric guitar and preforming for the first time at Pig Roast with the band), Berry Surret, and the young drummer Reed Surret.

If you are still interested and want to stay current with what is going on, check out the project blogs on our website (www.ruralstudioblogs.com), where you will see the official everyday life of the Studio. Of course, if you want to know the real story, come visit us. We can have lunch together at the Mercantile and tell you all the gossip.

We want to thank the continued support of the college, our community, and our donors; without them none of this would be possible.

I want to thank Dean Vini Nathan, Head of School Christian Dagg, and Andrew for having the confidence and trust in me to do this job. It has been an amazing and challenging experience, and I have learned a lot. I also want to thank Mary for her support over the last two years. I think she is very happy, since I will have thousands fewer emails, so I will have more time to talk with her.

Finally, I want to thank all the faculty and staff of Rural Studio for helping me to survive my second year!

All the best and kisses,

Xavier Vendrell Professor, Acting Director

03

RECENTLY COMPLETED: BUSTER’S HOME

RIBBON CUTTING

BUSTER’S HOME

Last fall we celebrated the completion of Buster’s Home, 20Kv21, with a ribbon cutting ceremony followed by a BBQ dinner with friends, neighbors, faculty, staff, students, and their families. The design of the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home 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 project.

JOIN US AS WE CELEBRATE BUSTER’S HOMECOMING AND ANOTHER 20K PROJECT FINISHED

Plan 20Kv21 Buster’s home plan is a two-bedroom, one-bath iteration of the 20K project.

Ribbon Cutting Buster celebrates the completion of his new home.

Buster’s Home The finished home, 20Kv21 Buster’s Home.

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 live 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 House, 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 which are 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 efficiency of this mechanical system, a strategic plan for passive ventilation has been designed in the form of window placement and attic air movement.

Thank you to Ben Malaier, Carley Chastain, Janine Mwenja, and Olivia Backer for making a beautiful new home for Buster!

04

3RD -YEAR

R

ee has a new home! In the fall and spring semesters of the last year, the 3rd-Year Rural Studio students started and completed a home for Ree. Construction began in mid-October and ended the last week of April. Ree’s new home is a version of Joanne’s Home, a design from the 20K Home Product Line. Visiting Assistant Professor Emily McGlohn and Rural Studio Instructor Alex Therrien led the charge.

05

Fall Construction 3rd-Year Fall Semester students had the opportunity to place the home’s location on the existing site and design the building’s foundation.

Spring Construction 3rd-Year Spring Semester students had the opportunity to install framing and exterior finishes from the foundation to the roof.

Fall 2017 Students (pictured to the left) Andrew Frese, Ashley Bucher, Conner Quinn, Cory Subasic, Hayley Hendrick, Henry Savoie, Jonathan Schneider, Kevin Jeon, Kyle Anderson, Kyra Stark, Lauren Wertz, Livia Barrett, Marlyn Rivera, Regan Eiland, Will Hall, and Zoey Gerstner.

Spring 2018 Students (not pictured) Camron Lynch, Conner Tomasello, Dana McFarland, Elizabeth Clark, Emily Shirah, Ingrid Stahl, Jake Schirmer, Nicole Brown, Owen Railey, Preston Smith, Rowe Price, Ryan Kolowich, Sarah Livings, Xuerui Chen, Ying Dong, and Zak Channell.

3RD -YEAR

IN THE FIELD

HISTORY & THEORY STUDENTS DISCOVER ALABAMA’S BLACK BELT AND DRAW FROM THE PAST

The objective of the History and Theory Seminar at Rural Studio is to familiarize the 3rd-Year students with the built environment in Alabama’s Black Belt and to gain understanding of the context of the buildings: how they were built, how they perform, and how they relate to the world today. The physical, social, and cultural environments have to be understood in order to place these buildings in context, both nationally and internationally. The course consists of weekly trips to historic buildings in West Alabama, discussion of the buildings, and free-hand sketches of each building visited. Also part of the course requirements is a “Beaux Arts” watercolor of an historic building in the Black Belt.

Church of the Holy Cross A sketch of the Church of the Holy Cross by Henry Savoie.

REE’S HOME

Ree’s Home This house is an iteration of 20Kv10 Joanne’s Home, which explores an elevated slab-ongrade and modifying conditioned spaces without resizing the existing building footprint.

ZIG ZAG CHAIR Though rooted in principles of De Stijl, this chair was a radical gesture compared to Reitveld’s earlier work. The design includes progressive updates like a lack of color, a strong diagonal line, and an overall abstract form.

3RD-YEAR STUDIO

ORIGINAL GERRIT RIETVELD, 1932 RECREATED BY XUERUI CHEN & INGRID STAHL

3RD -YEAR STUDENTS TACKLE A NEW CHALLENGE IN THEIR 20K BUILD THIS YEAR

During the fall semester, students studied the site conditions of Ree’s property, compared the three product line homes, and designed a raised slab foundation for the house. Through study of the characteristics of the land, solar orientation, and Ree’s love of her front porch, Joanne’s Home design was selected for Ree. However, due to considerations of energy efficiency and durability, a significant alteration was made to the baseline house. Most 20K Homes are built on piers because of the adaptability of the system, but Ree’s Home was built on a raised slab foundation. This alternative system provides Ree with an excellent thermal mass and a floor system that will last forever. Also, the raised slab is several inches lower to the ground increasing accessibility.

In typical Rural Studio fashion, the fall was a muddy semester. Laying concrete block in West Alabama clay was an unforgettable experience for all.

Students in the spring started the semester by putting the roof on the house. Then, in specialized groups, they completed rough framing, the exterior enclosure, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and interior finishes. In addition to completing the house they were also asked to design an outdoor space between Ree’s new home and her sister’s home next door. Ree’s sister, Geraldine, also owns a 20K Home that was completed in 2015 by former 5th-year students Adam Grigsby, Kristen Gruhn, Maggie Scott, and Trent Tepool. To connect the two sisters’ houses, the students designed a cascading stair that runs the length of the porch. These stairs doubled as access to the shared courtyard and as a seating area.

BUILT BY HAND

DESSEIN ELECTIVE STUDENTS USE THE WOODSHOP TO HONE THEIR HANDSKILLS

For the past eight years, an emphasis has been placed on developing and encouraging the use of wood as a renewable and readily available material throughout the Studio. The Rural Studio Woodshop has served as a base for 3rd-Year students to gain a solid comprehension of woodworking skills and focus on the quality and characteristics of working with wood. They are challenged to develop and design the process of recreating notable and iconic chairs through research, drawing, modeling, and building. The final product yields extensive drawings and the actual reproduction of the chair. The hope is that this will reinforce a culture of rigor in research and craft that will extend beyond the woodshop into future projects.

STANDARD CHAIR NO.4

Many people helped make this project successful, most notably Joe Bucher and Adele Schirmer.

Joe is Ashley Bucher’s father and a masonry contractor from Jacksonville, Florida. During the fall Joe visited Newbern and hosted a concrete block laying workshop for the students. One of Joe’s managers and masons, Ray, also came for the workshop. Ray demonstrated block laying technique and helped set the six corners of the foundation.

Adele Schirmer is Jake Schirmer’s mom and a civil engineer. She visited Rural Studio in the spring to help with storm water drainage on Ree’s very flat site. Vaiden Clay is the type of soil on the site. This soil does not drain rainwater well. It makes excellent catfish ponds, but it creates problems for house construction. Students solved these problems by connecting natural water flows in especially wet areas.

Ree’s home is now complete. The students gained an invaluable education in construction, and Ree gained a home. Through collaboration, determination, and fun, the 3rd-year students continued Rural Studio’s mission to make beautiful, affordable, efficient, durable, and well-built homes.

Ormand-Little House This is a watercolor of the Ormand-Little House by Ingrid Stahl.

Prouvé’s focus on structural supports is clear to see in this design. Though the original called for aluminum supports, this version from 1942 is purely made of wood (most aluminum at that time was used for France’s wartime efforts.)

ORIGINAL JEAN PROUVÉ, 1942 RECREATED BY CONNOR TOMASELLO & JAKE SCHIRMER

FREI EGIDIO CHAIR Side-By-Side A sketch of Ree’s Home next to her sister’s home, 20Kv17 Geraldine’s Home by 3rd-year student Henry Savoie.

Frei Egidio was designed for the Teatro Gregorios de Mattos. Its form is derived from x-shaped Franciscan folding chairs from the 15th century. The chair is named after a friar that invited Lina to design the Espirito Santo de Cerradi Church.

ORIGINAL LINA BO BARDI, 1986 RECREATED BY HENRY SAVOIE & KYRA STARK Woodshop Henry Savoie making components for a chair.

04

3RD -YEAR

R

ee has a new home! In the fall and spring semesters of the last year, the 3rd-Year Rural Studio students started and completed a home for Ree. Construction began in mid-October and ended the last week of April. Ree’s new home is a version of Joanne’s Home, a design from the 20K Home Product Line. Visiting Assistant Professor Emily McGlohn and Rural Studio Instructor Alex Therrien led the charge.

05

Fall Construction 3rd-Year Fall Semester students had the opportunity to place the home’s location on the existing site and design the building’s foundation.

Spring Construction 3rd-Year Spring Semester students had the opportunity to install framing and exterior finishes from the foundation to the roof.

Fall 2017 Students (pictured to the left) Andrew Frese, Ashley Bucher, Conner Quinn, Cory Subasic, Hayley Hendrick, Henry Savoie, Jonathan Schneider, Kevin Jeon, Kyle Anderson, Kyra Stark, Lauren Wertz, Livia Barrett, Marlyn Rivera, Regan Eiland, Will Hall, and Zoey Gerstner.

Spring 2018 Students (not pictured) Camron Lynch, Conner Tomasello, Dana McFarland, Elizabeth Clark, Emily Shirah, Ingrid Stahl, Jake Schirmer, Nicole Brown, Owen Railey, Preston Smith, Rowe Price, Ryan Kolowich, Sarah Livings, Xuerui Chen, Ying Dong, and Zak Channell.

3RD -YEAR

IN THE FIELD

HISTORY & THEORY STUDENTS DISCOVER ALABAMA’S BLACK BELT AND DRAW FROM THE PAST

The objective of the History and Theory Seminar at Rural Studio is to familiarize the 3rd-Year students with the built environment in Alabama’s Black Belt and to gain understanding of the context of the buildings: how they were built, how they perform, and how they relate to the world today. The physical, social, and cultural environments have to be understood in order to place these buildings in context, both nationally and internationally. The course consists of weekly trips to historic buildings in West Alabama, discussion of the buildings, and free-hand sketches of each building visited. Also part of the course requirements is a “Beaux Arts” watercolor of an historic building in the Black Belt.

Church of the Holy Cross A sketch of the Church of the Holy Cross by Henry Savoie.

REE’S HOME

Ree’s Home This house is an iteration of 20Kv10 Joanne’s Home, which explores an elevated slab-ongrade and modifying conditioned spaces without resizing the existing building footprint.

ZIG ZAG CHAIR Though rooted in principles of De Stijl, this chair was a radical gesture compared to Reitveld’s earlier work. The design includes progressive updates like a lack of color, a strong diagonal line, and an overall abstract form.

3RD-YEAR STUDIO

ORIGINAL GERRIT RIETVELD, 1932 RECREATED BY XUERUI CHEN & INGRID STAHL

3RD -YEAR STUDENTS TACKLE A NEW CHALLENGE IN THEIR 20K BUILD THIS YEAR

During the fall semester, students studied the site conditions of Ree’s property, compared the three product line homes, and designed a raised slab foundation for the house. Through study of the characteristics of the land, solar orientation, and Ree’s love of her front porch, Joanne’s Home design was selected for Ree. However, due to considerations of energy efficiency and durability, a significant alteration was made to the baseline house. Most 20K Homes are built on piers because of the adaptability of the system, but Ree’s Home was built on a raised slab foundation. This alternative system provides Ree with an excellent thermal mass and a floor system that will last forever. Also, the raised slab is several inches lower to the ground increasing accessibility.

In typical Rural Studio fashion, the fall was a muddy semester. Laying concrete block in West Alabama clay was an unforgettable experience for all.

Students in the spring started the semester by putting the roof on the house. Then, in specialized groups, they completed rough framing, the exterior enclosure, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and interior finishes. In addition to completing the house they were also asked to design an outdoor space between Ree’s new home and her sister’s home next door. Ree’s sister, Geraldine, also owns a 20K Home that was completed in 2015 by former 5th-year students Adam Grigsby, Kristen Gruhn, Maggie Scott, and Trent Tepool. To connect the two sisters’ houses, the students designed a cascading stair that runs the length of the porch. These stairs doubled as access to the shared courtyard and as a seating area.

BUILT BY HAND

DESSEIN ELECTIVE STUDENTS USE THE WOODSHOP TO HONE THEIR HANDSKILLS

For the past eight years, an emphasis has been placed on developing and encouraging the use of wood as a renewable and readily available material throughout the Studio. The Rural Studio Woodshop has served as a base for 3rd-Year students to gain a solid comprehension of woodworking skills and focus on the quality and characteristics of working with wood. They are challenged to develop and design the process of recreating notable and iconic chairs through research, drawing, modeling, and building. The final product yields extensive drawings and the actual reproduction of the chair. The hope is that this will reinforce a culture of rigor in research and craft that will extend beyond the woodshop into future projects.

STANDARD CHAIR NO.4

Many people helped make this project successful, most notably Joe Bucher and Adele Schirmer.

Joe is Ashley Bucher’s father and a masonry contractor from Jacksonville, Florida. During the fall Joe visited Newbern and hosted a concrete block laying workshop for the students. One of Joe’s managers and masons, Ray, also came for the workshop. Ray demonstrated block laying technique and helped set the six corners of the foundation.

Adele Schirmer is Jake Schirmer’s mom and a civil engineer. She visited Rural Studio in the spring to help with storm water drainage on Ree’s very flat site. Vaiden Clay is the type of soil on the site. This soil does not drain rainwater well. It makes excellent catfish ponds, but it creates problems for house construction. Students solved these problems by connecting natural water flows in especially wet areas.

Ree’s home is now complete. The students gained an invaluable education in construction, and Ree gained a home. Through collaboration, determination, and fun, the 3rd-year students continued Rural Studio’s mission to make beautiful, affordable, efficient, durable, and well-built homes.

Ormand-Little House This is a watercolor of the Ormand-Little House by Ingrid Stahl.

Prouvé’s focus on structural supports is clear to see in this design. Though the original called for aluminum supports, this version from 1942 is purely made of wood (most aluminum at that time was used for France’s wartime efforts.)

ORIGINAL JEAN PROUVÉ, 1942 RECREATED BY CONNOR TOMASELLO & JAKE SCHIRMER

FREI EGIDIO CHAIR Side-By-Side A sketch of Ree’s Home next to her sister’s home, 20Kv17 Geraldine’s Home by 3rd-year student Henry Savoie.

Frei Egidio was designed for the Teatro Gregorios de Mattos. Its form is derived from x-shaped Franciscan folding chairs from the 15th century. The chair is named after a friar that invited Lina to design the Espirito Santo de Cerradi Church.

ORIGINAL LINA BO BARDI, 1986 RECREATED BY HENRY SAVOIE & KYRA STARK Woodshop Henry Savoie making components for a chair.

06

STAFF PROFILE: MACKENZIE STAGG

WELCOME BACK

MEET MACKENZIE

07

In this year’s Staff Profile, we are thrilled to celebrate Rural Studio’s newest addition to the team, Mackenzie Stagg, who has returned to us after five years. Over the years, she’s been part of the Studio in a variety of capacities, first as a student, then as outreach instructor, where she worked on the design and construction of ten 20K Homes, as well as several community projects. Mackenzie is an incredibly talented drawer and has been using those skills to develop the new instruction set for the product line in her new role with us as a research professor exploring the 20K initiative.

Unscramble the names of the four tools on the left illustrated by our friend Mackenzie.

CHECK YOUR ANSWERS ON PAGE 15 TO SEE HOW YOU DID.

20K INITIATIVE A DISPATCH FROM THE 20K TEAM ON THEIR EXCITING NEW PARTNERSHIPS AND WHAT’S HAPPENING THIS YEAR

1

TECARTH RASPT

2

S TAC WA P

3

NACULKIG U N G

4

PEDES R AQUES

1

2

3

4

illustrate the procurement and construction process for the house. Beyond the design of the house, this initiative aims to include a suite of integrated financial products, insurance products, energy standards, health outcomes, work force development goals, and a comprehensive set of instructions that will allow a wide constituency of fulfillment partners to deliver the home to anyone that needs it and everyone that wants it.

Assisting us in this effort we have a proverbial alphabet soup of partners: Fannie Mae, USDA, HAC, DOE, HUD, IBHS, NIBS, JCHS, HBN, Habitat for Humanity, and YouthBuild International. The goal of this coalition is two-fold: 1) to establish national policy guidelines that address the rural housing affordability crisis in a cross-sector integrated approach that breaks down structural barriers to home ownership and 2) develop a network of fulfillment partners that can provide these homes well beyond the scale and capacity of Rural Studio alone.

We are currently onboarding a group of pilot fieldtest partners to test and learn with our prototype products. These partners currently work in a variety of home delivery markets that we believe are viable for the 20K: charity providers (civic and faith-based organizations), the self-help and subsidy market (USDA Direct programs, CDFIs, Habitat for Humanity, etc.), and even the for-profit sector. Through these fieldtest partnerships, we are developing the products and services that will then subsequently be offered up to the public.

As an example of these partnerships in action, we are currently working with Habitat for Humanity to build an extraordinarily high-performance version of “Busters Home” (20Kv21) in Opelika, Alabama.

Modified to meet both the “Passive House” standard for energy performance and the “FORTIFIED Home” standard for resisting damage caused by high wind and hail, this house will offer the homeowner a remarkably low monthly utility payment along with a significantly reduced home insurance bill. Our strategy maintains the passive comfort performance that has always been a hallmark of the 20K research, but also includes an highly insulated building envelope along with advanced active heating, cooling, dehumidifying, and air exchanging equipment. With the projected monthly utility savings alone, we estimate that the homeowner could afford an increased monthly mortgage that would allow her to purchase an additional $18,000 in construction costs, well below the costs that allow this level of energy performance. Additionally, by building to the FORTIFIED

20K HOMES EXPLAINED IN 20 SECONDS SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS? SEARCH NO FURTHER!

15

In 2005 students determined that once all the other costs of daily living were covered (food, clothing, utilities, transportation, clothing, insurance and some modicum of savings) such a client had approximately $125.00 left each month with which to finance a home. Extrapolating current standard interest rates and mortgage terms out over time, it was determined that such a person could afford a home that costs approximately $20,000 to build. And thus the 20K Home project was born. Much has changed since the early days of the program. For example, the same homeowner living in the same circumstances can now afford a mortgage payment of approximately $240.00 per month, but that homeowner’s buying power has not increased: materials cost more, energy costs more, and labor costs more. Although the current prototype homes do indeed cost more than $20,000 in initial construction costs, we continue to hold true to the 20K Project as an idea to aspire to and remind us exactly what we are striving to do.

Now, 13 years on, we have learned that the issues of procuring a small, well-built, high-performing house that can be titled as real property is more than a “brick and mortar” problem. Challenges span the entire ecosystem of home purchasing and ownership, including credit, primary and secondary finance, zoning, permitting, project bidding and controls, insurance, and life cycle costs. As we have come to better understand these issues, we have learned that while it is import to ask what the house costs the homeowner, it is perhaps even more important to ask what it actually affords the homeowner. In other words, it is as important to understand the second costs of homeownership as it is to know the first costs, and, if these two can be linked together, we can perhaps imagine a new paradigm of affordability that reduces the risk for financial partners while simultaneously increasing mortgage viability for the homeowner.

In pursuit of addressing this systemic problem, we have assembled a broad coalition of national and federal partners that touch all parts of the delivery and procurement system. This year Fannie Mae (the national leader in providing access to reliable, affordable mortgage financing in under-served markets) became the cornerstone partner in our efforts to scale the availability of the 20K Project well beyond Rural Studio’s service population. Fannie Mae’s funding has also allowed us to hire Mackenzie Stagg to help in the initiative. Building upon her previous work as Outreach Instructor at Rural Studio, Mackenzie has been working to create documents which

E

Tell us about your work in NOLA. Favorite projects you work on? New skills learned?

The bulk of my time in New Orleans was spent working at Waggonner & Ball. In addition to architecture, they’ve been working to expand their scope and expertise into the realm of resilience—or a place’s ability to withstand and rebound from shocks and stresses—specifically around water. After working on small, affordable houses, thinking at the scale of systems (infrastructure, neighborhoods, etc.) was an interesting shift. Plus, resilience is the new sustainability—you heard it here first, kids.

I’ve got to ask–what is your favorite building in New Orleans? Why? One thing that struck me after moving there is that even though there are a ton of amazing buildings in New Orleans (because there really are), the individual buildings don’t matter nearly as much as their collective feel. Basically, when you’re designing one building, you’re trying to enhance—or at least not screw up—the space around the building. I’m pretty sure that that is just how cities work, and I was supposed to learn that in architecture school, but there you go. Oh, and for fun, y’all should check out the Tower Fantasy Instagram, whose muse is the so-bad-its-maybe-kind-of-good Plaza Tower building. (Note: the Plaza Tower building does exactly the opposite of what I just said buildings in New Orleans should do—the space around it is terrible.)

What excites you most about being back and working on the 20K Project again?

Getting to work with Rusty Smith . . .

Tell us more about what you are working on with the 20K Product Line. What are you currently doing? What’s next?

I’m going to let Rusty tell you all about that on the next page (see—I told you I was excited to work with him, and y’all thought I was just being sarcastic).

What do you do when you’re not at work?

I’m a home-body—I’m maybe a little obsessive about my space. I’ve gotten into sewing—it is like building, but backwards and inside out. I also like watching movies, except the ones Steve Long recommends (mostly kidding, Steve). Occasionally I also try to talk to other people, but not too much.

Tell us what’s important to you.

Equity. The environment. Good, hard work.

Who do you admire most?

Words like “most” make me nervous—that is a lot of commitment. But, I’ve always had a fondness for what I know of Jacques Cousteau; he saw, made, and did some cool things.

Any advice for our students?

Rural Studio has an amazing network of alums and friends—I’m constantly impressed at how far our network reaches and how willing they are to help.

None of us exists in a vacuum, though at times it might feel like it. Remember to ask for help when you need it and offer help when others do.

Tell us something about yourself that we don’t already know.

I’m bad at spelling, but good at grammar. Spell check allows me to function in this world.

Favorite Tool?

Speed square.

G

Where are you from?

Alabaster, Ala.—a southerly suburb of Birmingham.

Fun fact #1: The name Alabaster is a misnomer; the mineral that people thought was alabaster was actually limestone. Knowledge should be power, folks.

Fun fact #2: Natalie Butts-Ball, Rusty Smith, and I all went through the Alabaster school system at some point in our grade school careers.

You’re an incredible drawer and doodler. What are your favorite things to draw? Why? Drawing in axonometric, isometric, or perspective projections—instead of sketching what I “see”—is my preference. Constructing drawings this way feels more like a skill I can continue to develop and less like a “talent.” I tend to doodle geometric objects or patterns, drawn with the help of gridded sketchbooks.

I can’t draw straight lines to save my life. In fact, I wish I’d started using gridded sketchbooks earlier in life—discovering them was something of a revelation for me, like when I discovered that you could flatiron your hair—why didn’t I know about that in high school? Wait—what was the question again?

You’re also one of the most organized people we’ve ever known. Tell us something that secretly drives you crazy.

Despite time spent organizing and cleaning, there is always a pile of papers on my desk (any/every desk) that I can’t seem to get rid of. Even if I move or change jobs, the paper pile quickly reappears.

Where did your love of designing and building come from?

I grew up with several architects in my extended family. When I was a kid, I would go to my grandfather’s office and play at the drafting tables with the parallel bar and triangles. They also had all of these interesting machines for binding and labeling—and even this funny shoe-shine device. Seemed like there were so many cool tools to play with. Then, I learned that—if you build stuff—you get to play with even more fun tools.

How did you first hear about Rural Studio?

My grandmother once clipped an article about Rural Studio out of the Opelika-Auburn News and brought it to me. I think I was in middle school. My family is big on news clippings—I still receive them occasionally. This very article has a good chance of getting clipped/saved by my mother. Hi, Mom. What did you work on here before as a student and instructor?

20K, 20K, and more 20K. Describe your favorite part of the design process.

Well, I think the fun part is getting to go through the process. The way that big concepts get developed and carried through to the details is what I find interesting. It is less fun if you’re only doing one part. That being said, I do enjoy working through details.

Describe your favorite part of the build process.

Framing. It is a simple, efficient system and provides basically instant gratification. If we want to get even more specific—wall framing is really where it’s at for me. But, as with the design process, I don’t think it would be fun to just frame walls every day—it is fun to see the project through from start to finish. And our “finish” is really just the beginning, which is also cool.

You spent three years in New Orleans before returning to work with us on the 20K Initiative.

Mackenzie Stagg

Let’s all play...

BEHIND THE SCENES

Thirteen years ago, we asked ourselves two very simple and straightforward questions: what is the maximum mortgage that can be afforded by an individual living on medial social security income in Hale County?

And, could Rural Studio develop a well-built, dignified, and high-performing home that could be constructed with that mortgage? While we didn’t realize it at the time, embedded within those questions was a potential key for unlocking a radical rethinking of home affordability: rather than focusing only on what a home costs to build, could we instead begin to address the overall cost of homeownership?

PA

GET TO KNOW OUR OLD FRIEND AND NEW HIRE MACKENZIE STAGG

UPDATE: 20K INITIATIVE

structural standard, the appraised value of the home could be up to 7% higher than a comparative house, which simultaneously increases the available mortgage carry of the homeowner and better protects the investment of the lender. All told, we expect this home to be delivered to the homeowner for a monthly payment of less than $230.00 in the subsidized Habitat model. This coupling of the first cost of the house to the second cost of operation and maintenance is what we mean by our focus on what the home actually affords the homeowner. Our next step is to continue working with our partners to develop the financial products and processes that allow these concepts to be deployed more broadly.

The students continue to work on expanding the product line of houses and, to date, we have one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and accessible models. By integrating concepts of universal design, we also continue to explore ways to broaden the 20K accessibility options as well as to provide more resilient strategies that expand the homeowner’s opportunity to age in place with both independence and dignity. Next year, we will continue our partnership with Habitat and explore the integration of other standards, including the Department of Energy’s “Zero Ready” program and the Healthy Building Network’s “Home Free” initiative. Stay tuned!

Below 20Kv10 Joanne’s House as photographed by Timothy Hursley. This is an example of one of our 20K Product Line homes.

06

STAFF PROFILE: MACKENZIE STAGG

WELCOME BACK

MEET MACKENZIE

07

In this year’s Staff Profile, we are thrilled to celebrate Rural Studio’s newest addition to the team, Mackenzie Stagg, who has returned to us after five years. Over the years, she’s been part of the Studio in a variety of capacities, first as a student, then as outreach instructor, where she worked on the design and construction of ten 20K Homes, as well as several community projects. Mackenzie is an incredibly talented drawer and has been using those skills to develop the new instruction set for the product line in her new role with us as a research professor exploring the 20K initiative.

Unscramble the names of the four tools on the left illustrated by our friend Mackenzie.

CHECK YOUR ANSWERS ON PAGE 15 TO SEE HOW YOU DID.

20K INITIATIVE A DISPATCH FROM THE 20K TEAM ON THEIR EXCITING NEW PARTNERSHIPS AND WHAT’S HAPPENING THIS YEAR

1

TECARTH RASPT

2

S TAC WA P

3

NACULKIG U N G

4

PEDES R AQUES

1

2

3

4

illustrate the procurement and construction process for the house. Beyond the design of the house, this initiative aims to include a suite of integrated financial products, insurance products, energy standards, health outcomes, work force development goals, and a comprehensive set of instructions that will allow a wide constituency of fulfillment partners to deliver the home to anyone that needs it and everyone that wants it.

Assisting us in this effort we have a proverbial alphabet soup of partners: Fannie Mae, USDA, HAC, DOE, HUD, IBHS, NIBS, JCHS, HBN, Habitat for Humanity, and YouthBuild International. The goal of this coalition is two-fold: 1) to establish national policy guidelines that address the rural housing affordability crisis in a cross-sector integrated approach that breaks down structural barriers to home ownership and 2) develop a network of fulfillment partners that can provide these homes well beyond the scale and capacity of Rural Studio alone.

We are currently onboarding a group of pilot fieldtest partners to test and learn with our prototype products. These partners currently work in a variety of home delivery markets that we believe are viable for the 20K: charity providers (civic and faith-based organizations), the self-help and subsidy market (USDA Direct programs, CDFIs, Habitat for Humanity, etc.), and even the for-profit sector. Through these fieldtest partnerships, we are developing the products and services that will then subsequently be offered up to the public.

As an example of these partnerships in action, we are currently working with Habitat for Humanity to build an extraordinarily high-performance version of “Busters Home” (20Kv21) in Opelika, Alabama.

Modified to meet both the “Passive House” standard for energy performance and the “FORTIFIED Home” standard for resisting damage caused by high wind and hail, this house will offer the homeowner a remarkably low monthly utility payment along with a significantly reduced home insurance bill. Our strategy maintains the passive comfort performance that has always been a hallmark of the 20K research, but also includes an highly insulated building envelope along with advanced active heating, cooling, dehumidifying, and air exchanging equipment. With the projected monthly utility savings alone, we estimate that the homeowner could afford an increased monthly mortgage that would allow her to purchase an additional $18,000 in construction costs, well below the costs that allow this level of energy performance. Additionally, by building to the FORTIFIED

20K HOMES EXPLAINED IN 20 SECONDS SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS? SEARCH NO FURTHER!

15

In 2005 students determined that once all the other costs of daily living were covered (food, clothing, utilities, transportation, clothing, insurance and some modicum of savings) such a client had approximately $125.00 left each month with which to finance a home. Extrapolating current standard interest rates and mortgage terms out over time, it was determined that such a person could afford a home that costs approximately $20,000 to build. And thus the 20K Home project was born. Much has changed since the early days of the program. For example, the same homeowner living in the same circumstances can now afford a mortgage payment of approximately $240.00 per month, but that homeowner’s buying power has not increased: materials cost more, energy costs more, and labor costs more. Although the current prototype homes do indeed cost more than $20,000 in initial construction costs, we continue to hold true to the 20K Project as an idea to aspire to and remind us exactly what we are striving to do.

Now, 13 years on, we have learned that the issues of procuring a small, well-built, high-performing house that can be titled as real property is more than a “brick and mortar” problem. Challenges span the entire ecosystem of home purchasing and ownership, including credit, primary and secondary finance, zoning, permitting, project bidding and controls, insurance, and life cycle costs. As we have come to better understand these issues, we have learned that while it is import to ask what the house costs the homeowner, it is perhaps even more important to ask what it actually affords the homeowner. In other words, it is as important to understand the second costs of homeownership as it is to know the first costs, and, if these two can be linked together, we can perhaps imagine a new paradigm of affordability that reduces the risk for financial partners while simultaneously increasing mortgage viability for the homeowner.

In pursuit of addressing this systemic problem, we have assembled a broad coalition of national and federal partners that touch all parts of the delivery and procurement system. This year Fannie Mae (the national leader in providing access to reliable, affordable mortgage financing in under-served markets) became the cornerstone partner in our efforts to scale the availability of the 20K Project well beyond Rural Studio’s service population. Fannie Mae’s funding has also allowed us to hire Mackenzie Stagg to help in the initiative. Building upon her previous work as Outreach Instructor at Rural Studio, Mackenzie has been working to create documents which

E

Tell us about your work in NOLA. Favorite projects you work on? New skills learned?

The bulk of my time in New Orleans was spent working at Waggonner & Ball. In addition to architecture, they’ve been working to expand their scope and expertise into the realm of resilience—or a place’s ability to withstand and rebound from shocks and stresses—specifically around water. After working on small, affordable houses, thinking at the scale of systems (infrastructure, neighborhoods, etc.) was an interesting shift. Plus, resilience is the new sustainability—you heard it here first, kids.

I’ve got to ask–what is your favorite building in New Orleans? Why? One thing that struck me after moving there is that even though there are a ton of amazing buildings in New Orleans (because there really are), the individual buildings don’t matter nearly as much as their collective feel. Basically, when you’re designing one building, you’re trying to enhance—or at least not screw up—the space around the building. I’m pretty sure that that is just how cities work, and I was supposed to learn that in architecture school, but there you go. Oh, and for fun, y’all should check out the Tower Fantasy Instagram, whose muse is the so-bad-its-maybe-kind-of-good Plaza Tower building. (Note: the Plaza Tower building does exactly the opposite of what I just said buildings in New Orleans should do—the space around it is terrible.)

What excites you most about being back and working on the 20K Project again?

Getting to work with Rusty Smith . . .

Tell us more about what you are working on with the 20K Product Line. What are you currently doing? What’s next?

I’m going to let Rusty tell you all about that on the next page (see—I told you I was excited to work with him, and y’all thought I was just being sarcastic).

What do you do when you’re not at work?

I’m a home-body—I’m maybe a little obsessive about my space. I’ve gotten into sewing—it is like building, but backwards and inside out. I also like watching movies, except the ones Steve Long recommends (mostly kidding, Steve). Occasionally I also try to talk to other people, but not too much.

Tell us what’s important to you.

Equity. The environment. Good, hard work.

Who do you admire most?

Words like “most” make me nervous—that is a lot of commitment. But, I’ve always had a fondness for what I know of Jacques Cousteau; he saw, made, and did some cool things.

Any advice for our students?

Rural Studio has an amazing network of alums and friends—I’m constantly impressed at how far our network reaches and how willing they are to help.

None of us exists in a vacuum, though at times it might feel like it. Remember to ask for help when you need it and offer help when others do.

Tell us something about yourself that we don’t already know.

I’m bad at spelling, but good at grammar. Spell check allows me to function in this world.

Favorite Tool?

Speed square.

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Where are you from?

Alabaster, Ala.—a southerly suburb of Birmingham.

Fun fact #1: The name Alabaster is a misnomer; the mineral that people thought was alabaster was actually limestone. Knowledge should be power, folks.

Fun fact #2: Natalie Butts-Ball, Rusty Smith, and I all went through the Alabaster school system at some point in our grade school careers.

You’re an incredible drawer and doodler. What are your favorite things to draw? Why? Drawing in axonometric, isometric, or perspective projections—instead of sketching what I “see”—is my preference. Constructing drawings this way feels more like a skill I can continue to develop and less like a “talent.” I tend to doodle geometric objects or patterns, drawn with the help of gridded sketchbooks.

I can’t draw straight lines to save my life. In fact, I wish I’d started using gridded sketchbooks earlier in life—discovering them was something of a revelation for me, like when I discovered that you could flatiron your hair—why didn’t I know about that in high school? Wait—what was the question again?

You’re also one of the most organized people we’ve ever known. Tell us something that secretly drives you crazy.

Despite time spent organizing and cleaning, there is always a pile of papers on my desk (any/every desk) that I can’t seem to get rid of. Even if I move or change jobs, the paper pile quickly reappears.

Where did your love of designing and building come from?

I grew up with several architects in my extended family. When I was a kid, I would go to my grandfather’s office and play at the drafting tables with the parallel bar and triangles. They also had all of these interesting machines for binding and labeling—and even this funny shoe-shine device. Seemed like there were so many cool tools to play with. Then, I learned that—if you build stuff—you get to play with even more fun tools.

How did you first hear about Rural Studio?

My grandmother once clipped an article about Rural Studio out of the Opelika-Auburn News and brought it to me. I think I was in middle school. My family is big on news clippings—I still receive them occasionally. This very article has a good chance of getting clipped/saved by my mother. Hi, Mom. What did you work on here before as a student and instructor?

20K, 20K, and more 20K. Describe your favorite part of the design process.

Well, I think the fun part is getting to go through the process. The way that big concepts get developed and carried through to the details is what I find interesting. It is less fun if you’re only doing one part. That being said, I do enjoy working through details.

Describe your favorite part of the build process.

Framing. It is a simple, efficient system and provides basically instant gratification. If we want to get even more specific—wall framing is really where it’s at for me. But, as with the design process, I don’t think it would be fun to just frame walls every day—it is fun to see the project through from start to finish. And our “finish” is really just the beginning, which is also cool.

You spent three years in New Orleans before returning to work with us on the 20K Initiative.

Mackenzie Stagg

Let’s all play...

BEHIND THE SCENES

Thirteen years ago, we asked ourselves two very simple and straightforward questions: what is the maximum mortgage that can be afforded by an individual living on medial social security income in Hale County?

And, could Rural Studio develop a well-built, dignified, and high-performing home that could be constructed with that mortgage? While we didn’t realize it at the time, embedded within those questions was a potential key for unlocking a radical rethinking of home affordability: rather than focusing only on what a home costs to build, could we instead begin to address the overall cost of homeownership?

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GET TO KNOW OUR OLD FRIEND AND NEW HIRE MACKENZIE STAGG

UPDATE: 20K INITIATIVE

structural standard, the appraised value of the home could be up to 7% higher than a comparative house, which simultaneously increases the available mortgage carry of the homeowner and better protects the investment of the lender. All told, we expect this home to be delivered to the homeowner for a monthly payment of less than $230.00 in the subsidized Habitat model. This coupling of the first cost of the house to the second cost of operation and maintenance is what we mean by our focus on what the home actually affords the homeowner. Our next step is to continue working with our partners to develop the financial products and processes that allow these concepts to be deployed more broadly.

The students continue to work on expanding the product line of houses and, to date, we have one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and accessible models. By integrating concepts of universal design, we also continue to explore ways to broaden the 20K accessibility options as well as to provide more resilient strategies that expand the homeowner’s opportunity to age in place with both independence and dignity. Next year, we will continue our partnership with Habitat and explore the integration of other standards, including the Department of Energy’s “Zero Ready” program and the Healthy Building Network’s “Home Free” initiative. Stay tuned!

Below 20Kv10 Joanne’s House as photographed by Timothy Hursley. This is an example of one of our 20K Product Line homes.

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5TH-YEAR

09

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his year twelve 5th-Year students began designing and building three projects for our West Alabama community. Two projects support a local non-profit in Greensboro called Project Horseshoe Farm. One of these projects will provide much-needed green space to facilitate programming in the courtyard of the Horseshoe headquarters, and the other project will add supportive housing for vulnerable women in Greensboro. The third team is designing the latest version of our 20K project, the 20Kv22, which focuses on the efficiency of the home over its lifetime and reducing its post-occupancy cost.

5TH-YEAR

Horseshoe Farm Hub Courtyard Rear view of the courtyard.

Horseshoe Farm Homes - Surveying the Site Lauren takes measurements as the Horseshoe Homes team prepares the site.

CULTIVATING THE COURTYARD

20Kv22 - Experimenting Chelsea and Sarah test material properties of various paint colors and cladding types.

HORSESHOE FARM HUB COURTYARD

Horseshoe Farm Hub Courtyard - Construction Claudia, Caleb, and Zack prepare materials for the courtyard under the Fabrication Pavilion.

PROJECT HORSESHOE FARM’S OUTDOOR AREA IS TRANSFORMED BY A TEAM OF 5TH-YEAR STUDENTS

Project Horseshoe Farm is a community-based non-profit and life-enhancement organization located in Greensboro, Alabama. Since its founding in 2007, Horseshoe Farm has grown to become a multifaceted leadership development and service organization. Currently, the organization runs an innovative network of support programs for adults and teens at their headquarters, the Hub, which is the newly renovated historic “Old Greensboro Hotel” building. Project Horseshoe Farm approached Rural Studio to help design and build a courtyard space for the building.

The new space will add a much-needed amenity to the organization by providing an inviting, safe, and flexible outdoor space for the various life-enhancement programs.

A courtyard is an unroofed space that is defined by walls on all sides, however the boundaries of the existing site behind the Hub building are not well defined. The project aims to create an exterior room with walls of vegetation that frame the sky as the ceiling. The new structure will be detached from the existing building to provide room for circulation on both the ground and second floor, minimizing the impact on the 200-year-old building. Although the courtyard space is conceptually separate from the building, the design will respond to different aspects of the existing site while also providing a back porch, a vegetative screen for shading, and openings for both views and the sun.

The proposal has different zones in order to provide spatial options for the user. There is a central space designed with both stationary seating on the perimeter and movable seating for flexible use of the space. A canopy of trees will provide a smaller-scale space within the limits of the central room. The last zone acts as a porch so participants can watch the activity and feel connected and included in what is happening within the main space.

Horseshoe Farm Hub Courtyard A view of the east section of the courtyard.

This view showcases many of the screens and envelopes in development.

Climbing Plants A selection of climbing plants to be used in the Horseshoe Farm Hub Courtyard.

Horseshoe Farm Hub Courtyard Team (not pictured) Caleb R. Munson, Claire Kubilins, Claudia Paz Melendez, and Zack Cundey.

Head to Head: Building on the Past

UPDATES AND ITERATIONS

20K V22 5TH-YEAR STUDENTS SEEK TO IMPROVE ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND MONTHLY COST IN A REVISED 20K BUILD

The 20K project began in 2005 when Rural Studio decided to test whether they could develop and build a beautiful, high-performance, well-built home that a person on medial social security in Hale County could afford.

Each year, students have examined ways to improve upon the previous year’s work on the 20K project. In this year’s version of the ongoing research project, the student team is focused on the what is costs to operate a 20K Home. The aim of the 20K project has always been to build affordable homes, focusing on lower mortgage costs, but the goal of 20Kv22 is to make it affordable to live in by lowering utility bills and home insurance payments. The team will determine these savings by comparing a baseline home’s energy consumption to a revised home’s energy consumption.

The baseline home is the model-home iteration of Dave’s Home (20Kv08). The design of the revised home will be based on the results of experiments and tests on the model home that will determine the optimal environmental context, building envelope, and thermal comfort strategies. Once these modifications to the original design are integrated into the revised home, they will not compromise the integrity and identity of Dave’s Home. Furthermore, the revised home will be built to comply with FORTIFIED Home standards, a set of guidelines outlined by a third-party organization that recommends homes to be above the minimum code requirements in order to reduce damage from tornadoes, hurricanes, and hail.

Compliance with FORTIFIED Home standards will additionally lower insurance payments.

Once both homes are built and furnished, the

BASELINE HOME

REVISED HOME

1. Passive & Mechanical Strategies Used together, these will acheive better thermal comfort.

2. Fenestration The Baseline Home’s fenestration will be adjusted to hurricane-rated, double-pane, low-e coated, and argon-filled glass in order to prove these savings are worth the upfront costs. The Revised Home will be compliant with FORTIFIED Home standards.

3. Roof Assembly The truss configuration and pitch in the Revised Home are simplified to a more energy- and cost- efficient size.

An added roof deck and updated point of insulation will provide better air and water sealing.

4. Orientation The orientation of the Baseline Home is mirrored to optimize the window placement in order to take greater advantage of natural light and passive heating.

1

5. Color Corrugated steel is the ideal cladding. Both the color and glossiness will be updated to further improve energy performance.

6. Renewable Energy Technology Solar panels and rainwater collection will directly reduce the cost of utilities.

7. Shading The Revised Home’s shading will be optimized to prevent heat gain through the windows in the summer and allow maximum heat gain in the winter.

8. Wall Assembly The Revised Home will be more efficiently insulated with blown-in cellulose in the walls, rigid XPS beneath the floor, and closed cell spray foam along the roof deck.

9. Foundation & Floor Concrete footings with a floating slab in the Revised Home will be protected from seasonal and diurnal temperature swings.

3 7

2

HOME SWEET HOME

6

4

8

5 9

students will outfit the homes with several sensors and data loggers that will monitor the microclimate, energy consumption, indoor temperature and relative humidity, intra-wall temperature and relative humidity, and indoor air quality. In addition, the students will live in both homes and take detailed accounts of their experiences and thermal comfort across all four seasons—a first for Rural Studio. Each week, the team will collect the quantitative data, analyze it, and correlate it with their qualitative observations.

By designing, building, and then living in both the baseline home and the revised home, the students

will be gathering both the quantitative data of a thorough post-occupancy study and the qualitative experience of what it is actually like to live in a Rural Studio 20K home.

House vs House 5th-year students compare two versions of the 20K project in order continue to improve the home’s efficiency and lifetime cost.

20Kv22 Team (not pictured) Chelsea Elcott, Kenny Fallon, Michael Kelly, and Sarah Curry.

HORSESHOE FARM HOMES STUDENT TEAMS ADD LIVING UNITS FOR WOMEN IN GREENSBORO AT HORSESHOE FARM HOMES

The team is designing and building a new enhanced independent living home for the client, Project Horseshoe Farm. Located in Greensboro, Project Horseshoe Farm is a multifaceted, community-based non-profit service and leadership-development organization. This home will be built on a residential site in downtown Greensboro and will include five new living units for women as well as a community space.

Enhanced independent living offers supportive housing for adults who live with disabilities, mental illness, a history of substance abuse, and chronic homelessness as well as those who have been living in isolation. Not only does it provide necessary support, but it will help residents to stay independent and elevate their quality of life. There is a lot of need for these homes because of the general lack of medical care and supportive housing, which means people who live under these conditions typically become homeless, imprisoned, or cycle through emergency rooms. This program provides a safe and stable place to live while placing a real emphasis on rehabilitation.

The students were tasked with developing a living unit that will focus on mental, physical, and emotional wellness. Each of the five units will be self-contained with a kitchenette, dining area, bedroom, bathroom, and a front and back porch.

This allows a flexible lifestyle, and will let the women decide how much they want to be engaged with the other women living on the site. In addition to the living units, the students are designing a community space for all the women to come together for shared activities, like watching a movie, playing games, eating together, or just hanging out on their front porch.

Horseshoe Farm Homes Exterior This is a rendering of the Horseshoe Farm Homes project, including five living units and a community center.

Horseshoe Farm Homes Plan A view of the Horseshoe Farm Homes plan.

Spacial Mockup Frank McDaniel from the project team sits in a scale mockup of one of the the window boxes of the living units.

Horseshoe Farm Homes Team (not pictured) Frank McDaniel, Gavin Fraser, Lauren Barnes, and Sydney Gargiulo.

08

5TH-YEAR

09

T

his year twelve 5th-Year students began designing and building three projects for our West Alabama community. Two projects support a local non-profit in Greensboro called Project Horseshoe Farm. One of these projects will provide much-needed green space to facilitate programming in the courtyard of the Horseshoe headquarters, and the other project will add supportive housing for vulnerable women in Greensboro. The third team is designing the latest version of our 20K project, the 20Kv22, which focuses on the efficiency of the home over its lifetime and reducing its post-occupancy cost.

5TH-YEAR

Horseshoe Farm Hub Courtyard Rear view of the courtyard.

Horseshoe Farm Homes - Surveying the Site Lauren takes measurements as the Horseshoe Homes team prepares the site.

CULTIVATING THE COURTYARD

20Kv22 - Experimenting Chelsea and Sarah test material properties of various paint colors and cladding types.

HORSESHOE FARM HUB COURTYARD

Horseshoe Farm Hub Courtyard - Construction Claudia, Caleb, and Zack prepare materials for the courtyard under the Fabrication Pavilion.

PROJECT HORSESHOE FARM’S OUTDOOR AREA IS TRANSFORMED BY A TEAM OF 5TH-YEAR STUDENTS

Project Horseshoe Farm is a community-based non-profit and life-enhancement organization located in Greensboro, Alabama. Since its founding in 2007, Horseshoe Farm has grown to become a multifaceted leadership development and service organization. Currently, the organization runs an innovative network of support programs for adults and teens at their headquarters, the Hub, which is the newly renovated historic “Old Greensboro Hotel” building. Project Horseshoe Farm approached Rural Studio to help design and build a courtyard space for the building.

The new space will add a much-needed amenity to the organization by providing an inviting, safe, and flexible outdoor space for the various life-enhancement programs.

A courtyard is an unroofed space that is defined by walls on all sides, however the boundaries of the existing site behind the Hub building are not well defined. The project aims to create an exterior room with walls of vegetation that frame the sky as the ceiling. The new structure will be detached from the existing building to provide room for circulation on both the ground and second floor, minimizing the impact on the 200-year-old building. Although the courtyard space is conceptually separate from the building, the design will respond to different aspects of the existing site while also providing a back porch, a vegetative screen for shading, and openings for both views and the sun.

The proposal has different zones in order to provide spatial options for the user. There is a central space designed with both stationary seating on the perimeter and movable seating for flexible use of the space. A canopy of trees will provide a smaller-scale space within the limits of the central room. The last zone acts as a porch so participants can watch the activity and feel connected and included in what is happening within the main space.

Horseshoe Farm Hub Courtyard A view of the east section of the courtyard.

This view showcases many of the screens and envelopes in development.

Climbing Plants A selection of climbing plants to be used in the Horseshoe Farm Hub Courtyard.

Horseshoe Farm Hub Courtyard Team (not pictured) Caleb R. Munson, Claire Kubilins, Claudia Paz Melendez, and Zack Cundey.

Head to Head: Building on the Past

UPDATES AND ITERATIONS

20K V22 5TH-YEAR STUDENTS SEEK TO IMPROVE ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND MONTHLY COST IN A REVISED 20K BUILD

The 20K project began in 2005 when Rural Studio decided to test whether they could develop and build a beautiful, high-performance, well-built home that a person on medial social security in Hale County could afford.

Each year, students have examined ways to improve upon the previous year’s work on the 20K project. In this year’s version of the ongoing research project, the student team is focused on the what is costs to operate a 20K Home. The aim of the 20K project has always been to build affordable homes, focusing on lower mortgage costs, but the goal of 20Kv22 is to make it affordable to live in by lowering utility bills and home insurance payments. The team will determine these savings by comparing a baseline home’s energy consumption to a revised home’s energy consumption.

The baseline home is the model-home iteration of Dave’s Home (20Kv08). The design of the revised home will be based on the results of experiments and tests on the model home that will determine the optimal environmental context, building envelope, and thermal comfort strategies. Once these modifications to the original design are integrated into the revised home, they will not compromise the integrity and identity of Dave’s Home. Furthermore, the revised home will be built to comply with FORTIFIED Home standards, a set of guidelines outlined by a third-party organization that recommends homes to be above the minimum code requirements in order to reduce damage from tornadoes, hurricanes, and hail.

Compliance with FORTIFIED Home standards will additionally lower insurance payments.

Once both homes are built and furnished, the

BASELINE HOME

REVISED HOME

1. Passive & Mechanical Strategies Used together, these will acheive better thermal comfort.

2. Fenestration The Baseline Home’s fenestration will be adjusted to hurricane-rated, double-pane, low-e coated, and argon-filled glass in order to prove these savings are worth the upfront costs. The Revised Home will be compliant with FORTIFIED Home standards.

3. Roof Assembly The truss configuration and pitch in the Revised Home are simplified to a more energy- and cost- efficient size.

An added roof deck and updated point of insulation will provide better air and water sealing.

4. Orientation The orientation of the Baseline Home is mirrored to optimize the window placement in order to take greater advantage of natural light and passive heating.

1

5. Color Corrugated steel is the ideal cladding. Both the color and glossiness will be updated to further improve energy performance.

6. Renewable Energy Technology Solar panels and rainwater collection will directly reduce the cost of utilities.

7. Shading The Revised Home’s shading will be optimized to prevent heat gain through the windows in the summer and allow maximum heat gain in the winter.

8. Wall Assembly The Revised Home will be more efficiently insulated with blown-in cellulose in the walls, rigid XPS beneath the floor, and closed cell spray foam along the roof deck.

9. Foundation & Floor Concrete footings with a floating slab in the Revised Home will be protected from seasonal and diurnal temperature swings.

3 7

2

HOME SWEET HOME

6

4

8

5 9

students will outfit the homes with several sensors and data loggers that will monitor the microclimate, energy consumption, indoor temperature and relative humidity, intra-wall temperature and relative humidity, and indoor air quality. In addition, the students will live in both homes and take detailed accounts of their experiences and thermal comfort across all four seasons—a first for Rural Studio. Each week, the team will collect the quantitative data, analyze it, and correlate it with their qualitative observations.

By designing, building, and then living in both the baseline home and the revised home, the students

will be gathering both the quantitative data of a thorough post-occupancy study and the qualitative experience of what it is actually like to live in a Rural Studio 20K home.

House vs House 5th-year students compare two versions of the 20K project in order continue to improve the home’s efficiency and lifetime cost.

20Kv22 Team (not pictured) Chelsea Elcott, Kenny Fallon, Michael Kelly, and Sarah Curry.

HORSESHOE FARM HOMES STUDENT TEAMS ADD LIVING UNITS FOR WOMEN IN GREENSBORO AT HORSESHOE FARM HOMES

The team is designing and building a new enhanced independent living home for the client, Project Horseshoe Farm. Located in Greensboro, Project Horseshoe Farm is a multifaceted, community-based non-profit service and leadership-development organization. This home will be built on a residential site in downtown Greensboro and will include five new living units for women as well as a community space.

Enhanced independent living offers supportive housing for adults who live with disabilities, mental illness, a history of substance abuse, and chronic homelessness as well as those who have been living in isolation. Not only does it provide necessary support, but it will help residents to stay independent and elevate their quality of life. There is a lot of need for these homes because of the general lack of medical care and supportive housing, which means people who live under these conditions typically become homeless, imprisoned, or cycle through emergency rooms. This program provides a safe and stable place to live while placing a real emphasis on rehabilitation.

The students were tasked with developing a living unit that will focus on mental, physical, and emotional wellness. Each of the five units will be self-contained with a kitchenette, dining area, bedroom, bathroom, and a front and back porch.

This allows a flexible lifestyle, and will let the women decide how much they want to be engaged with the other women living on the site. In addition to the living units, the students are designing a community space for all the women to come together for shared activities, like watching a movie, playing games, eating together, or just hanging out on their front porch.

Horseshoe Farm Homes Exterior This is a rendering of the Horseshoe Farm Homes project, including five living units and a community center.

Horseshoe Farm Homes Plan A view of the Horseshoe Farm Homes plan.

Spacial Mockup Frank McDaniel from the project team sits in a scale mockup of one of the the window boxes of the living units.

Horseshoe Farm Homes Team (not pictured) Frank McDaniel, Gavin Fraser, Lauren Barnes, and Sydney Gargiulo.

10

FRIENDS OF THE STUDIO

IN MEMORY OF

STEVE GENTRY

11

Steve Gentry was a supporter of Rural Studio and a true citizen of Hale County. Whether as a businessman running his own computer consultancy, where he worked with local banks and hospitals; as a councilman for the City of Greensboro; as a member of Greensboro Parks and Rec Board; as a force behind the instigation of the Greensboro Boys & Girls Club; as an instigating founder of the Greensboro Farmers Market; or even as a mayoral candidate of Greensboro, Steve believed in being an advocate for a civil society and for acting as a citizen.

A BIG THANK YOU

JIM TURNIPSEED

Ride Along Steve Gentry and Tina Freear (daughter of Andrew Freear) ride in Steve’s tractor.

Steve Gentry died on November 5, 2017. He is survived by his wife, Debra Hill Gentry; daughter, Angela Cargile Rose (Robbie); sons, Joshua Neal Gentry and Jordan Parker Gentry; sister, Jennifer Gentry Clem (Jimbo); brother, Dan Price Gentry (Melissa); grandchildren, Noah Parker Gentry, George Lewis Morrison, Morgan Tayler Rose and Katherine Tenley Rose.

tion of the market to include a community garden, eating at Mustang Oil or Newbern Mercantile while plotting future projects, or sitting in his pickup truck with my family as he fed his cows. My, did he love those cows. They opened up a fascinating new world of farming to him, and he took to it with gusto (in his spare time he ran a beef herd with his son-in-law, Robbie Rose).

But Steve was also a great family man. He was absolutely delighted when his granddaughter, Morgan Tayler Rose, was accepted to Auburn in 2016.

Incidentally, Steve had the vision and imagination to ask one of our students, Jamin Pendergraft, to be her mentor and tutor in the years prior to her acceptance.

Steve was so curious, such an optimist, and so ambitious for the world and for all around him.

For the last 18 years, Jim Turnipseed has been one of our most generous supporters. He started by helping us with trusses at the first Akron Boys & Girls Club. Since then he’s donated miles of steel section, thousands of Simpson Strong Ties, acres of threaded rod, trillions of washers, screws, and hex head bolts, and countless self-tapping screws and setting anchors.

We simply could not operate without him. Jim is a man of very few words but a heart of gold and incredible generosity, and we love him to death.

FAUNSDALE COMMUNITY CENTER After clearing the site and salvaging as much material from the existing building, the team poured footings for the new steel stud walls and the interior slab, which serves as the new finished floor material. In the courtyard, they dug out three large trenches using a backhoe in order to install a drainage system underneath where the grove of trees—forest pansy redbuds— were to be planted while still dormant. Once the trees were in the ground, the team fabricated the roof joists, which are composed of the salvaged wood from the original floor and roof structure. These joists were fabricated off-site under the wonderful Fabrication Pavilion. Meanwhile, the team constructed load-bearing walls out of steel studs, which were raised in panels onto the concrete curbs in the building and then tied back into the original brick structure for stability. Laminated veneer lumber members were then placed on top of the walls by a crane, allowing the team to raise the composite roof joists into place using pulleys. Once the roof structure was complete, they installed the roof decking as well as all the electrical, insulation, sheathing, and parapets. Rural Studio alumni Zane Morgan and Cassandra Kellogg have been working closely with the team and spent a few days in Faunsdale installing the steel curtain wall in the back of the building.

Up next for the team is the construction of the front of the building, which includes the entry vestibule, bathroom, alcove, kitchenette, and storage cabinets. Then the team will work on HVAC, electrical, plumbing, interior finishes, cladding the exterior, constructing the courtyard fence, building the back storage space that defines the end of the courtyard, and the front canopy. The Studio hopes to celebrate the grand opening of the Faunsdale Community Center later this fall.

Teamwork The Faunsdale team hoists the roof joists into place using a pulley system. The joists are composed of salvaged wood from the original floor and roof structure.

Future State The courtyard will have plenty of space for weddings, gatherings, and get-togethers.

Ask the Leftovers...

A CONVERSATION WITH OF ONE OF OUR FAVORITE SUPPORTERS

Jim Turnipseed

UPDATES ON THE BUILD

Over the past year, Team Faunsdale has been hard at work constructing Faunsdale’s new community center. The team is comprised of four grads that just won’t quit: Anna Daley, Jenny Lomas, John Sydnor, and Grant Wright. Lovingly referred to as “Leftovers,” this crew completed their education but chose to remain in Hale County until the work they started is complete. With only a few months left, the team hopes to celebrate the grand opening in December.

ANNA, JENNY, JOHN, AND GRANT ARE ALMOST FINISHED WITH THE FAUNSDALE COMMUNITY CENTER

A TRIBUTE TO OUR DEAR FRIEND STEVE

BY ANDREW FREEAR

We never talked politics directly, but his actions spoke louder than words. For him, to complain was not enough. Steve was a man of action. “Get off your hands and go do something about it,” he would urge! His eagerness to get involved made him a great role model. He adored Greensboro and Hale County, choosing in his free time to try and better his community. He repeatedly told me that all he wanted was to make the place just a little bit better for his grandkids and their grandkids. He wanted to make a better world.

Steve wrote a passage in our book, Rural Studio at Twenty. In it, Steve admitted that “I personally would rather the buildings be more in keeping with local norms”, but Steve also paid Rural Studio a great compliment: “I never fully understood or appreciated just how much the architecture profession can contribute to a society. I either was not looking or just never had the opportunity to interact with seasoned architects and committed students practicing their trade. No community should be without architects; they have so much to offer.”

Today I miss his visionary presence: whether walking around Lions Park contemplating the next move with the Parks and Rec Board, standing at the Farmers Market talking about extending the ambi-

ONGOING PROJECTS: FAUNSDALE COMMUNITY CENTER

Where are you originally from?

In your career working with steel and construction fasteners, have you seen any major changes in I was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1947.

Where did your love of building, steel, and fasten- the industry? If so, what do you think is causing ers come from? As a six-year-old I watched carpen- these changes? Major changes are being driven by ters build a house in my neighborhood. I used the new computer models and research that allow the use scraps of 2x4s to accumulate a really large set of of wood in structures over three stories tall. We work blocks. That hooked me on construction. on some buildings that are five stories tall that are on Tell us about your time in school. What did you top of a two-story concrete structure. study? The US Navy granted me a full-ride to Do you have a favorite product you sell? My favorAuburn where I studied Building Construction (later ite product line is the hangers we sell to general renamed Building Science) in Biggin Hall. I finished contractors who build restaurants. I have supplied in 12 quarters because the Navy only paid for 12 every major concept, from Arby’s to Zaxby’s, in all quarters. After graduation I served four years in the 50 states and eight foreign countries.

Navy, then went to graduate school for two years. I What do you do when you’re not at work? started a business to supply the construction indus- Auburn Football and travel with family.

Tell us something about you that we don’t already try in 1977.

How did you first hear about Rural Studio? know! I started a company, Color Code Cookies, that Dean Dan Bennett recruited me to join his Dean’s hires women who are graduating from drug rehab Club. At one of those first meetings he suggested I programs. Visit our website colorcodecookies.com talk to Sambo Mockbee. I visited Sambo in Newbern, Tell us what’s important to you. That folks who and we immediately formed a bond. I started work- know me say, “I know somebody that Jim helped ing with groups on projects ranging from the first when he didn’t need to.”

Boys & Girls Club in Akron (now in private hands) Who is your hero? My mother who raised five kids to 20K houses. The students rely on me to find mate- in the 1950s as a single mom. rial sources and supply fasteners and steel. I’ve been Advice for our students? The quote from Aristotle, supporting the students since 1996.

“Find something you like to do and then find a way Why do you love supporting Rural Studio? to make a living doing it.”

I like to talk to the students and understand how to Favorite tool? Battery-powered drill. attack problems.

JOHN SYDNOR

JENNY LOMAS

ANNA DALEY

GRANT WRIGHT

What will you miss most after you finish the project and run off to get a fancy job in the city?

What has been the most challenging part of the project?

Biggest surprise as a leftover?

What has been the most fun part of this design/build process, living in Hale Co., etc.?

“The most rewarding part of “I will miss the family that the Faunsdale Community I have built here. Other Center project is seeing how students, the faculty, and the excited our clients get every community members that time they visit us on site.​As I am fortunate to spend my the space takes shape, they time with here have become can visualize more and more lifelong friends that I will what could take place there, hold close to me as I take my and hearing all of the differnext step.” ent ways they plan on using it is incredibly rewarding.”

“As a leftover, everything becomes much more serious and rigorous, as you are “I think the most fun part of the design/build process dealing with a real budget has been the meetings we and the responsibility of creating a functional project have had with our clients and advisory board. The to hand off to the commusupport and feedback we nity. Oh, and a layer of have received from that grime and muck that you group has been amazing.” can never quite get off.”

10

FRIENDS OF THE STUDIO

IN MEMORY OF

STEVE GENTRY

11

Steve Gentry was a supporter of Rural Studio and a true citizen of Hale County. Whether as a businessman running his own computer consultancy, where he worked with local banks and hospitals; as a councilman for the City of Greensboro; as a member of Greensboro Parks and Rec Board; as a force behind the instigation of the Greensboro Boys & Girls Club; as an instigating founder of the Greensboro Farmers Market; or even as a mayoral candidate of Greensboro, Steve believed in being an advocate for a civil society and for acting as a citizen.

A BIG THANK YOU

JIM TURNIPSEED

Ride Along Steve Gentry and Tina Freear (daughter of Andrew Freear) ride in Steve’s tractor.

Steve Gentry died on November 5, 2017. He is survived by his wife, Debra Hill Gentry; daughter, Angela Cargile Rose (Robbie); sons, Joshua Neal Gentry and Jordan Parker Gentry; sister, Jennifer Gentry Clem (Jimbo); brother, Dan Price Gentry (Melissa); grandchildren, Noah Parker Gentry, George Lewis Morrison, Morgan Tayler Rose and Katherine Tenley Rose.

tion of the market to include a community garden, eating at Mustang Oil or Newbern Mercantile while plotting future projects, or sitting in his pickup truck with my family as he fed his cows. My, did he love those cows. They opened up a fascinating new world of farming to him, and he took to it with gusto (in his spare time he ran a beef herd with his son-in-law, Robbie Rose).

But Steve was also a great family man. He was absolutely delighted when his granddaughter, Morgan Tayler Rose, was accepted to Auburn in 2016.

Incidentally, Steve had the vision and imagination to ask one of our students, Jamin Pendergraft, to be her mentor and tutor in the years prior to her acceptance.

Steve was so curious, such an optimist, and so ambitious for the world and for all around him.

For the last 18 years, Jim Turnipseed has been one of our most generous supporters. He started by helping us with trusses at the first Akron Boys & Girls Club. Since then he’s donated miles of steel section, thousands of Simpson Strong Ties, acres of threaded rod, trillions of washers, screws, and hex head bolts, and countless self-tapping screws and setting anchors.

We simply could not operate without him. Jim is a man of very few words but a heart of gold and incredible generosity, and we love him to death.

FAUNSDALE COMMUNITY CENTER After clearing the site and salvaging as much material from the existing building, the team poured footings for the new steel stud walls and the interior slab, which serves as the new finished floor material. In the courtyard, they dug out three large trenches using a backhoe in order to install a drainage system underneath where the grove of trees—forest pansy redbuds— were to be planted while still dormant. Once the trees were in the ground, the team fabricated the roof joists, which are composed of the salvaged wood from the original floor and roof structure. These joists were fabricated off-site under the wonderful Fabrication Pavilion. Meanwhile, the team constructed load-bearing walls out of steel studs, which were raised in panels onto the concrete curbs in the building and then tied back into the original brick structure for stability. Laminated veneer lumber members were then placed on top of the walls by a crane, allowing the team to raise the composite roof joists into place using pulleys. Once the roof structure was complete, they installed the roof decking as well as all the electrical, insulation, sheathing, and parapets. Rural Studio alumni Zane Morgan and Cassandra Kellogg have been working closely with the team and spent a few days in Faunsdale installing the steel curtain wall in the back of the building.

Up next for the team is the construction of the front of the building, which includes the entry vestibule, bathroom, alcove, kitchenette, and storage cabinets. Then the team will work on HVAC, electrical, plumbing, interior finishes, cladding the exterior, constructing the courtyard fence, building the back storage space that defines the end of the courtyard, and the front canopy. The Studio hopes to celebrate the grand opening of the Faunsdale Community Center later this fall.

Teamwork The Faunsdale team hoists the roof joists into place using a pulley system. The joists are composed of salvaged wood from the original floor and roof structure.

Future State The courtyard will have plenty of space for weddings, gatherings, and get-togethers.

Ask the Leftovers...

A CONVERSATION WITH OF ONE OF OUR FAVORITE SUPPORTERS

Jim Turnipseed

UPDATES ON THE BUILD

Over the past year, Team Faunsdale has been hard at work constructing Faunsdale’s new community center. The team is comprised of four grads that just won’t quit: Anna Daley, Jenny Lomas, John Sydnor, and Grant Wright. Lovingly referred to as “Leftovers,” this crew completed their education but chose to remain in Hale County until the work they started is complete. With only a few months left, the team hopes to celebrate the grand opening in December.

ANNA, JENNY, JOHN, AND GRANT ARE ALMOST FINISHED WITH THE FAUNSDALE COMMUNITY CENTER

A TRIBUTE TO OUR DEAR FRIEND STEVE

BY ANDREW FREEAR

We never talked politics directly, but his actions spoke louder than words. For him, to complain was not enough. Steve was a man of action. “Get off your hands and go do something about it,” he would urge! His eagerness to get involved made him a great role model. He adored Greensboro and Hale County, choosing in his free time to try and better his community. He repeatedly told me that all he wanted was to make the place just a little bit better for his grandkids and their grandkids. He wanted to make a better world.

Steve wrote a passage in our book, Rural Studio at Twenty. In it, Steve admitted that “I personally would rather the buildings be more in keeping with local norms”, but Steve also paid Rural Studio a great compliment: “I never fully understood or appreciated just how much the architecture profession can contribute to a society. I either was not looking or just never had the opportunity to interact with seasoned architects and committed students practicing their trade. No community should be without architects; they have so much to offer.”

Today I miss his visionary presence: whether walking around Lions Park contemplating the next move with the Parks and Rec Board, standing at the Farmers Market talking about extending the ambi-

ONGOING PROJECTS: FAUNSDALE COMMUNITY CENTER

Where are you originally from?

In your career working with steel and construction fasteners, have you seen any major changes in I was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1947.

Where did your love of building, steel, and fasten- the industry? If so, what do you think is causing ers come from? As a six-year-old I watched carpen- these changes? Major changes are being driven by ters build a house in my neighborhood. I used the new computer models and research that allow the use scraps of 2x4s to accumulate a really large set of of wood in structures over three stories tall. We work blocks. That hooked me on construction. on some buildings that are five stories tall that are on Tell us about your time in school. What did you top of a two-story concrete structure. study? The US Navy granted me a full-ride to Do you have a favorite product you sell? My favorAuburn where I studied Building Construction (later ite product line is the hangers we sell to general renamed Building Science) in Biggin Hall. I finished contractors who build restaurants. I have supplied in 12 quarters because the Navy only paid for 12 every major concept, from Arby’s to Zaxby’s, in all quarters. After graduation I served four years in the 50 states and eight foreign countries.

Navy, then went to graduate school for two years. I What do you do when you’re not at work? started a business to supply the construction indus- Auburn Football and travel with family.

Tell us something about you that we don’t already try in 1977.

How did you first hear about Rural Studio? know! I started a company, Color Code Cookies, that Dean Dan Bennett recruited me to join his Dean’s hires women who are graduating from drug rehab Club. At one of those first meetings he suggested I programs. Visit our website colorcodecookies.com talk to Sambo Mockbee. I visited Sambo in Newbern, Tell us what’s important to you. That folks who and we immediately formed a bond. I started work- know me say, “I know somebody that Jim helped ing with groups on projects ranging from the first when he didn’t need to.”

Boys & Girls Club in Akron (now in private hands) Who is your hero? My mother who raised five kids to 20K houses. The students rely on me to find mate- in the 1950s as a single mom. rial sources and supply fasteners and steel. I’ve been Advice for our students? The quote from Aristotle, supporting the students since 1996.

“Find something you like to do and then find a way Why do you love supporting Rural Studio? to make a living doing it.”

I like to talk to the students and understand how to Favorite tool? Battery-powered drill. attack problems.

JOHN SYDNOR

JENNY LOMAS

ANNA DALEY

GRANT WRIGHT

What will you miss most after you finish the project and run off to get a fancy job in the city?

What has been the most challenging part of the project?

Biggest surprise as a leftover?

What has been the most fun part of this design/build process, living in Hale Co., etc.?

“The most rewarding part of “I will miss the family that the Faunsdale Community I have built here. Other Center project is seeing how students, the faculty, and the excited our clients get every community members that time they visit us on site.​As I am fortunate to spend my the space takes shape, they time with here have become can visualize more and more lifelong friends that I will what could take place there, hold close to me as I take my and hearing all of the differnext step.” ent ways they plan on using it is incredibly rewarding.”

“As a leftover, everything becomes much more serious and rigorous, as you are “I think the most fun part of the design/build process dealing with a real budget has been the meetings we and the responsibility of creating a functional project have had with our clients and advisory board. The to hand off to the commusupport and feedback we nity. Oh, and a layer of have received from that grime and muck that you group has been amazing.” can never quite get off.”

12

CONSULTANT PROFILE: CHERYL NOEL & RAVI RICKER

CHICAGO’S FINEST

MEET CHERYL & RAVI

Two of our favorite consultatnts, the dynamic duo of Cheryl Noel and Ravi Ricker from Wrap Architecture in Chicago, have been visiting Hale County since 2007. Cheryl and Ravi are especially helpful in teaching students how to avoid getting tangled in complex building codes by coming up with creative solutions. From their background in punk rock and associations with a Turkish rebel, these former Mad Housers add a fresh voice to Rural Studio to help promote compassion and justice and to create positive change in the world.

ALUMNI PROFILES

EXTENDING THE ALUMNI NETWORK

COMING H0ME TO ROAST

Rural 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.

ALUMNI SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES PAST AND PRESENT WITH CURRENT RURAL STUDIO STUDENTS

FROM PUNK ROCK TO BUILDING CODES, CHERYL AND RAVI TELL US WHAT INSPIRES THEIR WORK

Where are you from?

CN (Cheryl Noel) I was born in San Francisco, but I grew up in Chicago.

RR (Ravi Ricker) I am from Washington DC and the metro area.

Why did you decide to become an architect?

CN I came to architecture circuitously, from a PhD program in Political Theory. I had been studying a group of theorists who believed that political change could be achieved through art and culture. I became disillusioned by the insulated world of academia and left in pursuit of a path to real change. Despite knowing very little about it and having never drawn anything, I chose architecture.

RR At age 15, I saw a model of Frank Gehry’s Santa Monica residence in an exhibit at the Pompidou Center in Paris. I looked at it and exclaimed, “Wow, Punk Rock Architecture!” From that moment on I had a goal.

Tell us about your time in school. Where did you study Architecture?

CN I’m not sure I would describe it as studying architecture, but I obtained an M.Arch from the University of Illinois at Chicago. The program was promoted as theoretical and designed for people with degrees in other fields. There was no theory, no thoughtful discussion. I was told by the director that I should leave to pursue sociology. But I remember the day I saw images of Diller + Scofidio’s “Withdrawing Room” and I knew that architecture was the right place for me.

RR I studied at the University of Miami School of Architecture where I bumped heads with many of my professors. I did my fourth year abroad in London at the Architectural Association (AA), where I again was able to find a vocabulary of architecture I could identify with.

How did you meet each other?

CN We met as members of The Mad Housers, building small huts to shelter homeless people.

RR Cheryl and I met just out of school, through an organization known as The Mad Housers. We were a group of citizens who believed in confronting the housing crisis and homelessness head on by building a series of small 6’x8’x10’ huts clustered to create communities on abandoned sites.

How did you first hear about Rural Studio?

CN I first read about Rural Studio in architecture magazines. In general the early press was not kind, and the work was dismissed as a social experiment and not really architecture. This of course piqued my interest, but there wasn’t much information about the work itself. The first real images of projects I saw was at a conference I attended. There was a side exhibit in a room I walked past, and the images drew me in.

The sign said something about rural Alabama, but the work looked like Frank Gehry. It was the Glass Chapel. It was beautiful. And my mind was blown when I realized they were windshields.

RR I first saw the work of Rural Studio in a publication when I had just come out of school. I was struck by the clever use of “readymade” industrial waste materials repurposed as building materials—license plate shingles, car windshield and straw bale walls.

It was another inspiration for the kind of architect I knew I wanted to be. At that time, I never imagined I could be a part of, let alone have an impact on, such a place. It was a fulfillment of a dream just to visit. I have Cheryl and Joe Farruggia to thank for that.

How long have you been a consultant for the Rural Studio?

CN We had been fans of Rural Studio for many years and followed the work from a distance. It was the 20K Home project that finally inspired a visit. In Chicago, at that time, a new sewer line cost $8,000 and a new water service $12,000 . . . so we had to come and see how you were doing a house for $20,000. I believe that visit was in 2007. We wanted to understand how the work was getting done, so we volunteered to help on the foundation for the Boys & Girls Club in Akron. It was the beginning of many long-term friendships.

Andrew was looking for someone to do a Building

13

Code Workshop in 2012 when concerns started to rise due to the public nature of the projects. Joe Farruggia recommended Ravi and I based on the complex code issues we tend to deal with in our work.

When Andrew asked, we looked at each other and asked if we wanted to be the people who killed Rural Studio with Code … We decided to embrace the challenge.

RR Cheryl and I first visited Rural Studio as guests in 2007 where we volunteered to help on the foundation for the Boys & Girls Club in Akron. We were first asked to put on a workshop in 2012 when Joe Farruggia, having just completed a complex project with us, suggested to Andrew Freear that we would be a good fit for a “Code Workshop.”

What do you like most about coming to Hale County? Why do you keep coming back?

CN For me, the Studio represents everything that I hoped architecture school would be but wasn’t. The opportunity to help support a new generation of architects, even in this small way, means a great deal to me. But the Studio is inextricably intertwined with this incredible place, and it is the place, the extraordinary people, and the wonderful friends that keep us coming back.

RR Visiting Hale County offers us an opportunity to

testing, to prove actual capacity. The framing was fine and had been removed senselessly.

RR Please do not mistake my enthusiasm for understanding the rules for love of the rules themselves. I have no “love of codes.” I believe the first step to a creative solution is to understand the problems to be resolved. Some of those issues are programmatic goals and budgetary restrictions of the client, others are the life safety and quality of life issues addressed by building codes.

How did you become experts in breweries?

CN If someone would have told me when we started that we would become brewery designers, I would have said they were crazy!

One of our first clients after starting our office was a residential client with a tiny kitchen renovation. The fee was so small that our friends told us we would never survive doing that kind of work. The project turned out nicely, and the client became our friend.

A year later he called and said his life’s dream was to open a brewpub and asked if we would design it.

It has been wildly successful and become the largest independent craft brewery in Chicago. And that client led to others like him. The lesson is that you never know who someone will become or what they will do next.

The interesting thing is that the transition was easy for us, and the work felt familiar. Craft brewery projects are community projects, they are local-focused and very supportive of each other. They are also extremely equipment-intensive. In the non-profit world, we had been doing a lot of energy efficiency work and referred to ourselves as equipment geeks.

So we enjoy the brewery equipment coordination and have been able to extend energy efficiency strategies to the brewing process itself. A recent project integrates the brewing process into the building systems by capturing process waste heat to make hot water and heat the building.

Tell us something about you that we don’t already know?

CN I spent a day in a Turkish prison. . . .

I was accused of inciting a public riot in the market and associating with a known rebel, all because I was sold a carpet under false pretenses. It’s a long story.

RR Since age 15, I have played in local garage punk bands from my early high school days participating in Washington DC hardcore’s Revolution Summer, through college, and later for years in Chicago. Music experience another world, one so different from the was the first place I found myself, my voice, my values, urban center we live and work in, and it reminds us and it has since served to center me. that despite differences, we all have the same needs Who are your heroes?

CN My heroes tend to be people who have the courand deserve each other’s support and kindness.

As far as the workshop, at first I hesitated. Upon hear- age to try to recreate the world to be a better, fairer, ing the concern that notoriety was bringing a new and more just place. level of scrutiny to the work, it seemed important to RR My true heroes are people I have experienced help the students not just understand the responsibil- firsthand making a difference in the world. ity they undertake when building, but that they see Growing up it was my mom who, as a single mother, that this responsibility can be used to help inform always showed me that the world can be extraordisolutions, not dictate them. nary. My wife and business partner who, as an unstopIn the end, it’s the relationships with staff and pable force for what she believes in, shows me daily students that keeps us coming back. through her actions that in fact we can make the world extraordinary, but only if people are willing Where did your love of codes come from?

CN I have no emotional attachment to building to do the hard work to make it so. codes. They are a reality of our work, they exist to Advice for our students? protect public safety, and compliance is not optional. CN The work we do matters. Every project you will However, codes are complex and subject to interpre- work on will have a direct impact on the people who tation. The nature of our work requires us to under- occupy it, the community it is located in, and the stand the intent of the code so that we can negotiate planet we all inhabit. You should decide what you creative but acceptable solutions. We are often asked want that impact to be. by other architects, “how did you get away with that?” RR See everything as a design opportunity, even the We take the time to understand the code’s intent and most mundane of tasks can be an opportunity to to research options available to us. Too often, people influence a greater whole. stop at the first answer they find.

Favorite tool?

I remember walking into a building a client was inter- CN Sadly, all of the ash trees around us are dying ested in leasing and the owner was tearing out beau- due to an invasive beetle. We seem to be constantly tiful timber framing to pour new concrete floors. dealing with the fallen trees in Michigan, seemWhen we asked why, he said his architect told him the ingly a Sisyphean task, and I have come to love our framing did not meet the code required load capac- battery-powered chain saw. ity. We knew better. Contemporary lumber would RR Depends on the job—the right one for it. But if I not have complied, but what they missed was that had to pick one, our laser tape measure has changed 100-year-old lumber is much stronger, and the code our lives. allows you to consider archaic material values, or even

WILL HOLMAN

JEFF JOHNSTON

KATIE BRYAN JOHNSTON

“I keep my Pig Roast poster in my office to remind me every day that design is for the people and to constantly check my opportunities against my values.”

“Over 20 years have passed since my first Rural Studio days. Sambo’s lessons about designing for place and caring about the community still ring. Important lessons from the RS: success requires teamwork, honor the region and context, engage and be a part of the community.”

“Rural Studio impacted my life far beyond just my Auburn years. I am trying to bring the same sense of design, teamwork, and community service to the high school students I currently teach and hopefully to my own children as well!”

Work: Open Works. Live: Baltimore, Maryland. RS Projects: 20Kv09 Mac’s Home (Outreach, 2010.)

Favorite Tool: Impact driver. Advice for Students: Make sure to do your own projects and research while school affords you the chance. Those personal, speculative things—drawings, prints, furniture, photography—are the most meaningful parts of your practice.

They will stick with you over time and make you better at everything else.

RENNIE JONES

Work: Stubbs Muldrow Herin architects (SMHa) Live: Charleston, South Carolina. RS Projects: Butterfly House (2nd-year, fall semester, 1995) and Thomaston Farmer’s Market (5th-year, 2000.) Favorite Tool: End Cutting Nippers—discreetly removes mistakes. Advice for Students: There is a great need in the architectural work force for RS graduates. Our profession needs graduates who have design skills coupled with technical ability, construction knowledge, the dedication to complete a task, and the ability to manage a project. Fine-tune these skills during your time at the RS.

PAUL KARDOUS

“Rural Studio allowed me to explore all “I think back on my time at Rural of my interests in architecture simulStudio on an almost daily basis and the taneously—intellectual rigor, the satislife and professional lessons that it left faction of physically putting things with me. Being able to hone some of together, and working toward the the skills you learn there help to make empowerment of clients often ignored you not only a better architect but a by the design world. I’ve looked for better citizen as well.” that same combination in everything Work: ROW Live: Charlotte, North Carolina. RS I’ve done since.”

Projects: Sanders-Dudley House (2nd-year, spring Work: Princeton University and Guy Nordenson and Associates. Live: New York, New York. RS Projects: 20Kv11 Turner’s Home (Outreach 2012.) Favorite Tool: Circular saw. Advice for Students: Don’t just follow a typical career path because it’s expected of you. Decide where you want to be next and figure out what you need to do to get there.

semester, 2001) and Rural Heritage Center (5th-year, 2004.) Favorite Tool: Claw hammer for small projects, Bobcat for bigger ones. Advice for Students: Take time to reflect on what you do before and after you do it, even if only for a moment. Try something very different from what and where you’re accustomed to, become an involved member of the community wherever you call home. And remember to enjoy those Hale County sunsets . . .

Work: Wando High School, civil engineering and architecture teacher. Live: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. RS Projects: Sanders-Dudley House (2nd-year, 2000) and Thomaston Rural Heritage Center Phase 1 (5th-year, 2003.) Favorite Tool: Chop Saw—line something up and cut it! Advice for Students: Learn to work as a team! I think Rural Studio is an extreme teamwork situation, but the lessons from that experience will make you successful in any endeavor. We cannot do things in a vacuum. It takes more than just you to make something successful from architecture projects to anything in life!

JANE SLOSS

“My path to Rural Studio began on a service learning trip to Haiti as an undergrad. It was the first time I wondered, in earnest, about what it is to contribute to the common good through one’s work. My time at Rural Studio challenged me and instructed me in further understanding what it is to be a citizen-architect and to work toward a common good.”

Work: Worn Jerabek Wiltse Architects. Live: Chicago, Illinois. RS Projects: 20Kv03 Truss Home (Outreach, 2007.) Favorite Tool: Watercolor paint brush. Advice for Students: My New Year’s resolution during my year at Rural Studio was to learn to truly love West Alabama. If you do, it will make your experience richer and your work more meaningful.

12

CONSULTANT PROFILE: CHERYL NOEL & RAVI RICKER

CHICAGO’S FINEST

MEET CHERYL & RAVI

Two of our favorite consultatnts, the dynamic duo of Cheryl Noel and Ravi Ricker from Wrap Architecture in Chicago, have been visiting Hale County since 2007. Cheryl and Ravi are especially helpful in teaching students how to avoid getting tangled in complex building codes by coming up with creative solutions. From their background in punk rock and associations with a Turkish rebel, these former Mad Housers add a fresh voice to Rural Studio to help promote compassion and justice and to create positive change in the world.

ALUMNI PROFILES

EXTENDING THE ALUMNI NETWORK

COMING H0ME TO ROAST

Rural 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.

ALUMNI SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES PAST AND PRESENT WITH CURRENT RURAL STUDIO STUDENTS

FROM PUNK ROCK TO BUILDING CODES, CHERYL AND RAVI TELL US WHAT INSPIRES THEIR WORK

Where are you from?

CN (Cheryl Noel) I was born in San Francisco, but I grew up in Chicago.

RR (Ravi Ricker) I am from Washington DC and the metro area.

Why did you decide to become an architect?

CN I came to architecture circuitously, from a PhD program in Political Theory. I had been studying a group of theorists who believed that political change could be achieved through art and culture. I became disillusioned by the insulated world of academia and left in pursuit of a path to real change. Despite knowing very little about it and having never drawn anything, I chose architecture.

RR At age 15, I saw a model of Frank Gehry’s Santa Monica residence in an exhibit at the Pompidou Center in Paris. I looked at it and exclaimed, “Wow, Punk Rock Architecture!” From that moment on I had a goal.

Tell us about your time in school. Where did you study Architecture?

CN I’m not sure I would describe it as studying architecture, but I obtained an M.Arch from the University of Illinois at Chicago. The program was promoted as theoretical and designed for people with degrees in other fields. There was no theory, no thoughtful discussion. I was told by the director that I should leave to pursue sociology. But I remember the day I saw images of Diller + Scofidio’s “Withdrawing Room” and I knew that architecture was the right place for me.

RR I studied at the University of Miami School of Architecture where I bumped heads with many of my professors. I did my fourth year abroad in London at the Architectural Association (AA), where I again was able to find a vocabulary of architecture I could identify with.

How did you meet each other?

CN We met as members of The Mad Housers, building small huts to shelter homeless people.

RR Cheryl and I met just out of school, through an organization known as The Mad Housers. We were a group of citizens who believed in confronting the housing crisis and homelessness head on by building a series of small 6’x8’x10’ huts clustered to create communities on abandoned sites.

How did you first hear about Rural Studio?

CN I first read about Rural Studio in architecture magazines. In general the early press was not kind, and the work was dismissed as a social experiment and not really architecture. This of course piqued my interest, but there wasn’t much information about the work itself. The first real images of projects I saw was at a conference I attended. There was a side exhibit in a room I walked past, and the images drew me in.

The sign said something about rural Alabama, but the work looked like Frank Gehry. It was the Glass Chapel. It was beautiful. And my mind was blown when I realized they were windshields.

RR I first saw the work of Rural Studio in a publication when I had just come out of school. I was struck by the clever use of “readymade” industrial waste materials repurposed as building materials—license plate shingles, car windshield and straw bale walls.

It was another inspiration for the kind of architect I knew I wanted to be. At that time, I never imagined I could be a part of, let alone have an impact on, such a place. It was a fulfillment of a dream just to visit. I have Cheryl and Joe Farruggia to thank for that.

How long have you been a consultant for the Rural Studio?

CN We had been fans of Rural Studio for many years and followed the work from a distance. It was the 20K Home project that finally inspired a visit. In Chicago, at that time, a new sewer line cost $8,000 and a new water service $12,000 . . . so we had to come and see how you were doing a house for $20,000. I believe that visit was in 2007. We wanted to understand how the work was getting done, so we volunteered to help on the foundation for the Boys & Girls Club in Akron. It was the beginning of many long-term friendships.

Andrew was looking for someone to do a Building

13

Code Workshop in 2012 when concerns started to rise due to the public nature of the projects. Joe Farruggia recommended Ravi and I based on the complex code issues we tend to deal with in our work.

When Andrew asked, we looked at each other and asked if we wanted to be the people who killed Rural Studio with Code … We decided to embrace the challenge.

RR Cheryl and I first visited Rural Studio as guests in 2007 where we volunteered to help on the foundation for the Boys & Girls Club in Akron. We were first asked to put on a workshop in 2012 when Joe Farruggia, having just completed a complex project with us, suggested to Andrew Freear that we would be a good fit for a “Code Workshop.”

What do you like most about coming to Hale County? Why do you keep coming back?

CN For me, the Studio represents everything that I hoped architecture school would be but wasn’t. The opportunity to help support a new generation of architects, even in this small way, means a great deal to me. But the Studio is inextricably intertwined with this incredible place, and it is the place, the extraordinary people, and the wonderful friends that keep us coming back.

RR Visiting Hale County offers us an opportunity to

testing, to prove actual capacity. The framing was fine and had been removed senselessly.

RR Please do not mistake my enthusiasm for understanding the rules for love of the rules themselves. I have no “love of codes.” I believe the first step to a creative solution is to understand the problems to be resolved. Some of those issues are programmatic goals and budgetary restrictions of the client, others are the life safety and quality of life issues addressed by building codes.

How did you become experts in breweries?

CN If someone would have told me when we started that we would become brewery designers, I would have said they were crazy!

One of our first clients after starting our office was a residential client with a tiny kitchen renovation. The fee was so small that our friends told us we would never survive doing that kind of work. The project turned out nicely, and the client became our friend.

A year later he called and said his life’s dream was to open a brewpub and asked if we would design it.

It has been wildly successful and become the largest independent craft brewery in Chicago. And that client led to others like him. The lesson is that you never know who someone will become or what they will do next.

The interesting thing is that the transition was easy for us, and the work felt familiar. Craft brewery projects are community projects, they are local-focused and very supportive of each other. They are also extremely equipment-intensive. In the non-profit world, we had been doing a lot of energy efficiency work and referred to ourselves as equipment geeks.

So we enjoy the brewery equipment coordination and have been able to extend energy efficiency strategies to the brewing process itself. A recent project integrates the brewing process into the building systems by capturing process waste heat to make hot water and heat the building.

Tell us something about you that we don’t already know?

CN I spent a day in a Turkish prison. . . .

I was accused of inciting a public riot in the market and associating with a known rebel, all because I was sold a carpet under false pretenses. It’s a long story.

RR Since age 15, I have played in local garage punk bands from my early high school days participating in Washington DC hardcore’s Revolution Summer, through college, and later for years in Chicago. Music experience another world, one so different from the was the first place I found myself, my voice, my values, urban center we live and work in, and it reminds us and it has since served to center me. that despite differences, we all have the same needs Who are your heroes?

CN My heroes tend to be people who have the courand deserve each other’s support and kindness.

As far as the workshop, at first I hesitated. Upon hear- age to try to recreate the world to be a better, fairer, ing the concern that notoriety was bringing a new and more just place. level of scrutiny to the work, it seemed important to RR My true heroes are people I have experienced help the students not just understand the responsibil- firsthand making a difference in the world. ity they undertake when building, but that they see Growing up it was my mom who, as a single mother, that this responsibility can be used to help inform always showed me that the world can be extraordisolutions, not dictate them. nary. My wife and business partner who, as an unstopIn the end, it’s the relationships with staff and pable force for what she believes in, shows me daily students that keeps us coming back. through her actions that in fact we can make the world extraordinary, but only if people are willing Where did your love of codes come from?

CN I have no emotional attachment to building to do the hard work to make it so. codes. They are a reality of our work, they exist to Advice for our students? protect public safety, and compliance is not optional. CN The work we do matters. Every project you will However, codes are complex and subject to interpre- work on will have a direct impact on the people who tation. The nature of our work requires us to under- occupy it, the community it is located in, and the stand the intent of the code so that we can negotiate planet we all inhabit. You should decide what you creative but acceptable solutions. We are often asked want that impact to be. by other architects, “how did you get away with that?” RR See everything as a design opportunity, even the We take the time to understand the code’s intent and most mundane of tasks can be an opportunity to to research options available to us. Too often, people influence a greater whole. stop at the first answer they find.

Favorite tool?

I remember walking into a building a client was inter- CN Sadly, all of the ash trees around us are dying ested in leasing and the owner was tearing out beau- due to an invasive beetle. We seem to be constantly tiful timber framing to pour new concrete floors. dealing with the fallen trees in Michigan, seemWhen we asked why, he said his architect told him the ingly a Sisyphean task, and I have come to love our framing did not meet the code required load capac- battery-powered chain saw. ity. We knew better. Contemporary lumber would RR Depends on the job—the right one for it. But if I not have complied, but what they missed was that had to pick one, our laser tape measure has changed 100-year-old lumber is much stronger, and the code our lives. allows you to consider archaic material values, or even

WILL HOLMAN

JEFF JOHNSTON

KATIE BRYAN JOHNSTON

“I keep my Pig Roast poster in my office to remind me every day that design is for the people and to constantly check my opportunities against my values.”

“Over 20 years have passed since my first Rural Studio days. Sambo’s lessons about designing for place and caring about the community still ring. Important lessons from the RS: success requires teamwork, honor the region and context, engage and be a part of the community.”

“Rural Studio impacted my life far beyond just my Auburn years. I am trying to bring the same sense of design, teamwork, and community service to the high school students I currently teach and hopefully to my own children as well!”

Work: Open Works. Live: Baltimore, Maryland. RS Projects: 20Kv09 Mac’s Home (Outreach, 2010.)

Favorite Tool: Impact driver. Advice for Students: Make sure to do your own projects and research while school affords you the chance. Those personal, speculative things—drawings, prints, furniture, photography—are the most meaningful parts of your practice.

They will stick with you over time and make you better at everything else.

RENNIE JONES

Work: Stubbs Muldrow Herin architects (SMHa) Live: Charleston, South Carolina. RS Projects: Butterfly House (2nd-year, fall semester, 1995) and Thomaston Farmer’s Market (5th-year, 2000.) Favorite Tool: End Cutting Nippers—discreetly removes mistakes. Advice for Students: There is a great need in the architectural work force for RS graduates. Our profession needs graduates who have design skills coupled with technical ability, construction knowledge, the dedication to complete a task, and the ability to manage a project. Fine-tune these skills during your time at the RS.

PAUL KARDOUS

“Rural Studio allowed me to explore all “I think back on my time at Rural of my interests in architecture simulStudio on an almost daily basis and the taneously—intellectual rigor, the satislife and professional lessons that it left faction of physically putting things with me. Being able to hone some of together, and working toward the the skills you learn there help to make empowerment of clients often ignored you not only a better architect but a by the design world. I’ve looked for better citizen as well.” that same combination in everything Work: ROW Live: Charlotte, North Carolina. RS I’ve done since.”

Projects: Sanders-Dudley House (2nd-year, spring Work: Princeton University and Guy Nordenson and Associates. Live: New York, New York. RS Projects: 20Kv11 Turner’s Home (Outreach 2012.) Favorite Tool: Circular saw. Advice for Students: Don’t just follow a typical career path because it’s expected of you. Decide where you want to be next and figure out what you need to do to get there.

semester, 2001) and Rural Heritage Center (5th-year, 2004.) Favorite Tool: Claw hammer for small projects, Bobcat for bigger ones. Advice for Students: Take time to reflect on what you do before and after you do it, even if only for a moment. Try something very different from what and where you’re accustomed to, become an involved member of the community wherever you call home. And remember to enjoy those Hale County sunsets . . .

Work: Wando High School, civil engineering and architecture teacher. Live: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. RS Projects: Sanders-Dudley House (2nd-year, 2000) and Thomaston Rural Heritage Center Phase 1 (5th-year, 2003.) Favorite Tool: Chop Saw—line something up and cut it! Advice for Students: Learn to work as a team! I think Rural Studio is an extreme teamwork situation, but the lessons from that experience will make you successful in any endeavor. We cannot do things in a vacuum. It takes more than just you to make something successful from architecture projects to anything in life!

JANE SLOSS

“My path to Rural Studio began on a service learning trip to Haiti as an undergrad. It was the first time I wondered, in earnest, about what it is to contribute to the common good through one’s work. My time at Rural Studio challenged me and instructed me in further understanding what it is to be a citizen-architect and to work toward a common good.”

Work: Worn Jerabek Wiltse Architects. Live: Chicago, Illinois. RS Projects: 20Kv03 Truss Home (Outreach, 2007.) Favorite Tool: Watercolor paint brush. Advice for Students: My New Year’s resolution during my year at Rural Studio was to learn to truly love West Alabama. If you do, it will make your experience richer and your work more meaningful.

15

PRESS & AWARDS

2018 READ ALL ABOUT IT

Rural Studio Works Design Magic In Newbern BUSINESS ALABAMA February 09, 2018 | Web & Magazine

Chasing The Dream PBS NEWSHOUR June 29, 2018 | TV

RURAL STUDIO IN THE NEWS CATCH A GLIMPSE OF WHO TOLD OUR STORIES THIS YEAR

Thinnings INTO THE WOODS, HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE June 2018 | Magazine Third Space / Shifting Conversations About Contemporary Art 2X’S, 2016 June 2018 | Magazine Episode 73: Public Interest Design, Past, Present, & Future With Sarah Curry And Coleman Coker SOCIAL DESIGN INSIGHTS May 29, 2018 | Podcast Rural Studio Builds Community In Alabama’s Hale County ALABAMA NEWSCENTER May 25, 2018 | Web Cityviews: We Need Innovative Designs–And Open Minds–To Solve The Housing Shortage CITY LIMITS May 09, 2018 | Web

PBS Newshour, June 2018

Toward A History: The AIA Diversity Timeline ARCHITECT MAGAZINE May 2018 | Web & Magazine New Library From Oma In Doha And 5 More Unusual Libraries Around The World AD RUSSIA April 19, 2018 | Web Alabama’s Rural Studio Provides Sleek Modern Building And Shelter For The Soul Too STAR TRIBUNE April 13, 2018 | Web

Into the Woods, June 2018

Our House: Probing “The American Idea Of Home” THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN March 03, 2018 | Web AIA Seattle Exhibit Shows How Architects Can Serve The Public Good CURBED SEATTLE March 02, 2018 | Web Who Will Win The 2018 Pritzker Prize?

ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST March 01, 2018 | Web One From The Vault THE NATIONAL March 2018 | Magazine

The National, March 2018

Perry Lakes Park - State Fish Hatcheries - Barton Beach ALABAMA BIRDING TRAILS February 08, 2018 | Web Behind The Lens: The Town That Had No Library GOVERNING February 2018 | Web What Do Andy Warhol, Crystal Bridges And Southern Funeral Homes Have In Common?

One Man: Tim Hursley ARKANSAS LIFE February 07, 2018 | Web 20 Alabama African-American Heritage Sites On 2018 World Monuments Watch List AL.COM January 22, 2018 | Web Coming Soon: The $20K Home Building Guide VISTA January 16, 2018 | Web

2017 Alabama Architecture Students Convert Historic Bank Into Library For Rural Town DEZEEN December 13, 2017 | Web 5 Amazing Tiny Houses And Their Financing Models ARCHIPRENEUR November 16, 2017 | Web Small Town, Big Style In Alabama YELLOWHAMMER NEWS September 28, 2017 | Web See Why A Small Community In Alabama Is Getting Attention For Its Architecture ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST September 2017 | Web & Magazine ER A 21 DESIGN-BUILD #04 2017 | Magazine The Best Student Design-Build Projects Worldwide 2017 ARCHDAILY July 13, 2017 | Web

Classifieds.

THE

“Stay Sharp”

Brought to you by

RURAL STUDIO OF NEWBERN, ALA.

We guarantee that every “STAY SHARP” blade is service-oriented, compassionate, and decent, with a workmanship that is simply uneaqualed.

Tips from ERIC BALL Rural Studio Garden Expert

“THE SHORTEST ANSWERS I’VE GOT”

R E V I E WS

DECEMBER 7&8, 2018

TAKE IT WITH YOU

STAY SHARP: FAST FIGURES

1 . D O E S I T R E A L LY C O S T $ 2 0 , 0 0 0 . 0 0 ?

2 . WH EN CAN I G E T O N E?

3 . H OW I S IT H E ATED AN D C O O LED ?

The home is optimized for passive comfort, but includes active systems as well.

200+ PROJECTS

EDUCATED

1000+ STUDENTS

TIMELINE

25 YEARS

WEEKEND

Yes.

5 . AR E TH ER E M O R E TH AN O N E- B ED RO O M M O D EL S?

COMPLETED

SOUP ROAST

No.

Not yet.

4 . CAN I V I S IT O N E O F TH E H O M ES?

Yes.

6 . WH AT I S TH E FU N DAM ENTAL C H ALLEN G E I N M AK E A S M ALL H O U S E M O R E AFFO R DAB LE? Silos.

7. WH O AR E YO U WO R K I N G WITH?

We have a national coalition of corporate and federal partners and collaborators in the areas of primary and secondary finance, insurance, Energy performance, and rural housing advocacy.

8 . WH AT I S N E X T WITH 20 K?

ALUMNI LECTURES

FR I DAY D ECE M B ER 7 AT T H E FAU N S DA L E BA R & G R I L L

PROJECT TOURS & REVIEWS SAT U R DAY D ECE M B ER 8

Mail Delivered (almost) Daily by the Newbern Post Office.

Stop by and say “Hello” to Gwen & Ashley!

Come and Give Us a Try!

Big things!

OR, VISIT HTTP:// W W W.RURALSTUDIO.ORG/ INITIATIVES/20K-HOUSE FOR MORE INFO ON THE PROJECT

NO. SS9318

• REN D ER I N GS • LOVE N OTES • B I LLS, B I LLS, B I LLS • H O M E RECI PES • WARR ANTS • G R AD ES • M I LD TH REATS A N D S O M U C H M O R E ...

APRIL 27, 2019

ANNUAL PLEASE SEND A $20,000 CHECK TO AU FOUNDATION/RURAL STUDIO: P.O. BOX 278 NEWBERN, AL 36765

A LET TER’S ALWAYS BET TER ...

Have it delivered the old-fashioned way:

Eight Questions You Ought To Know:

All data below collected during Rural Studio projects from 1993 to 2018 that use the “Stay Sharp” circular saw blade exclusively.

Knowing when watermelons are ripe for picking is an art, especially since they won't ripen once removed from the vine. I've heard of farmers who would plant a field of watermelons for coyotes to eat, since they could smell when the fruits were ripe and sweet. There are several indicators of ripeness: the tendril opposite the fruit will turn brown and dry out; when given a thump, a ripe watermelon will make a hollow sound; and the belly of the watermelon will turn pale yellow or greenish where it sits on the ground.

SCARY GOOD FEEDBACK

– RUSTY SMITH

Please Forward all Inquiries to: P.O. Box 278 Newbern, AL 36765

NOTE: The “STAY SHARP” blade is not an actual product. Rather, it is used here to serve as a metaphor for the ethos, attitude, and mission of Rural Studio. “Stay Sharp!”

T H E G O I N G S - O N I N H A L E CO U N T Y T H IS YE A R A N D N E X T

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

The attention of manufacturers of a better world, servants to community, and citizen architects is respectfully called to the “STAY SHARP” solid-tooth circular saw blade.

Every “STAY SHARP” blade is tempered and field-tested to affirm the people and place that surround it, using our patented hands-on process.

POCKET GUIDE TO 20K HOMES Featured in NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL ARCHITECTURE and BEAUTIFUL HOMES ON A BUDGET this book gives you the quickest answers to the most complicated questions about Rural Studio’s 20K Home project.

S OLI D- T OOTH C I RCU LA R S A W B LADE

All “STAY SHARP” blades are made up of a series of dedicated and hard-working teeth, driven by their talent, intellect and energy to work in unison toward a common, progressive goal.

Ag-Wise and Otherwise

Rusty Smith’s

Cat’s Kitchen AT T H E M O R R ISE T T E H O USE

Celebration and Valediction Answers to Tool Jumble from page 6: 1. R ATCH E T S TR A P 2 . C AT’S PAW 3 . C AU L K I N G G U N 4 . SPEED S Q UA RE

DON’T MISS THE EVENT OF THE YEAR. W E’L L S H A R E O U R PRO G R ES S A N D DA N CE I N TO T H E E VE N I N G A F T ER SERV I N G U P O N E “ H A L E” O F A M E A L .

RUR ALSTUDIO.COM

M E AT O N O CC AS I O N!

Over 4500 Plates Served!

8448 AL-61, Newbern, AL 36765

E ACH YE A R

OPEN 7 DAYS

15

PRESS & AWARDS

2018 READ ALL ABOUT IT

Rural Studio Works Design Magic In Newbern BUSINESS ALABAMA February 09, 2018 | Web & Magazine

Chasing The Dream PBS NEWSHOUR June 29, 2018 | TV

RURAL STUDIO IN THE NEWS CATCH A GLIMPSE OF WHO TOLD OUR STORIES THIS YEAR

Thinnings INTO THE WOODS, HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE June 2018 | Magazine Third Space / Shifting Conversations About Contemporary Art 2X’S, 2016 June 2018 | Magazine Episode 73: Public Interest Design, Past, Present, & Future With Sarah Curry And Coleman Coker SOCIAL DESIGN INSIGHTS May 29, 2018 | Podcast Rural Studio Builds Community In Alabama’s Hale County ALABAMA NEWSCENTER May 25, 2018 | Web Cityviews: We Need Innovative Designs–And Open Minds–To Solve The Housing Shortage CITY LIMITS May 09, 2018 | Web

PBS Newshour, June 2018

Toward A History: The AIA Diversity Timeline ARCHITECT MAGAZINE May 2018 | Web & Magazine New Library From Oma In Doha And 5 More Unusual Libraries Around The World AD RUSSIA April 19, 2018 | Web Alabama’s Rural Studio Provides Sleek Modern Building And Shelter For The Soul Too STAR TRIBUNE April 13, 2018 | Web

Into the Woods, June 2018

Our House: Probing “The American Idea Of Home” THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN March 03, 2018 | Web AIA Seattle Exhibit Shows How Architects Can Serve The Public Good CURBED SEATTLE March 02, 2018 | Web Who Will Win The 2018 Pritzker Prize?

ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST March 01, 2018 | Web One From The Vault THE NATIONAL March 2018 | Magazine

The National, March 2018

Perry Lakes Park - State Fish Hatcheries - Barton Beach ALABAMA BIRDING TRAILS February 08, 2018 | Web Behind The Lens: The Town That Had No Library GOVERNING February 2018 | Web What Do Andy Warhol, Crystal Bridges And Southern Funeral Homes Have In Common?

One Man: Tim Hursley ARKANSAS LIFE February 07, 2018 | Web 20 Alabama African-American Heritage Sites On 2018 World Monuments Watch List AL.COM January 22, 2018 | Web Coming Soon: The $20K Home Building Guide VISTA January 16, 2018 | Web

2017 Alabama Architecture Students Convert Historic Bank Into Library For Rural Town DEZEEN December 13, 2017 | Web 5 Amazing Tiny Houses And Their Financing Models ARCHIPRENEUR November 16, 2017 | Web Small Town, Big Style In Alabama YELLOWHAMMER NEWS September 28, 2017 | Web See Why A Small Community In Alabama Is Getting Attention For Its Architecture ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST September 2017 | Web & Magazine ER A 21 DESIGN-BUILD #04 2017 | Magazine The Best Student Design-Build Projects Worldwide 2017 ARCHDAILY July 13, 2017 | Web

Classifieds.

THE

“Stay Sharp”

Brought to you by

RURAL STUDIO OF NEWBERN, ALA.

We guarantee that every “STAY SHARP” blade is service-oriented, compassionate, and decent, with a workmanship that is simply uneaqualed.

Tips from ERIC BALL Rural Studio Garden Expert

“THE SHORTEST ANSWERS I’VE GOT”

R E V I E WS

DECEMBER 7&8, 2018

TAKE IT WITH YOU

STAY SHARP: FAST FIGURES

1 . D O E S I T R E A L LY C O S T $ 2 0 , 0 0 0 . 0 0 ?

2 . WH EN CAN I G E T O N E?

3 . H OW I S IT H E ATED AN D C O O LED ?

The home is optimized for passive comfort, but includes active systems as well.

200+ PROJECTS

EDUCATED

1000+ STUDENTS

TIMELINE

25 YEARS

WEEKEND

Yes.

5 . AR E TH ER E M O R E TH AN O N E- B ED RO O M M O D EL S?

COMPLETED

SOUP ROAST

No.

Not yet.

4 . CAN I V I S IT O N E O F TH E H O M ES?

Yes.

6 . WH AT I S TH E FU N DAM ENTAL C H ALLEN G E I N M AK E A S M ALL H O U S E M O R E AFFO R DAB LE? Silos.

7. WH O AR E YO U WO R K I N G WITH?

We have a national coalition of corporate and federal partners and collaborators in the areas of primary and secondary finance, insurance, Energy performance, and rural housing advocacy.

8 . WH AT I S N E X T WITH 20 K?

ALUMNI LECTURES

FR I DAY D ECE M B ER 7 AT T H E FAU N S DA L E BA R & G R I L L

PROJECT TOURS & REVIEWS SAT U R DAY D ECE M B ER 8

Mail Delivered (almost) Daily by the Newbern Post Office.

Stop by and say “Hello” to Gwen & Ashley!

Come and Give Us a Try!

Big things!

OR, VISIT HTTP:// W W W.RURALSTUDIO.ORG/ INITIATIVES/20K-HOUSE FOR MORE INFO ON THE PROJECT

NO. SS9318

• REN D ER I N GS • LOVE N OTES • B I LLS, B I LLS, B I LLS • H O M E RECI PES • WARR ANTS • G R AD ES • M I LD TH REATS A N D S O M U C H M O R E ...

APRIL 27, 2019

ANNUAL PLEASE SEND A $20,000 CHECK TO AU FOUNDATION/RURAL STUDIO: P.O. BOX 278 NEWBERN, AL 36765

A LET TER’S ALWAYS BET TER ...

Have it delivered the old-fashioned way:

Eight Questions You Ought To Know:

All data below collected during Rural Studio projects from 1993 to 2018 that use the “Stay Sharp” circular saw blade exclusively.

Knowing when watermelons are ripe for picking is an art, especially since they won't ripen once removed from the vine. I've heard of farmers who would plant a field of watermelons for coyotes to eat, since they could smell when the fruits were ripe and sweet. There are several indicators of ripeness: the tendril opposite the fruit will turn brown and dry out; when given a thump, a ripe watermelon will make a hollow sound; and the belly of the watermelon will turn pale yellow or greenish where it sits on the ground.

SCARY GOOD FEEDBACK

– RUSTY SMITH

Please Forward all Inquiries to: P.O. Box 278 Newbern, AL 36765

NOTE: The “STAY SHARP” blade is not an actual product. Rather, it is used here to serve as a metaphor for the ethos, attitude, and mission of Rural Studio. “Stay Sharp!”

T H E G O I N G S - O N I N H A L E CO U N T Y T H IS YE A R A N D N E X T

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

The attention of manufacturers of a better world, servants to community, and citizen architects is respectfully called to the “STAY SHARP” solid-tooth circular saw blade.

Every “STAY SHARP” blade is tempered and field-tested to affirm the people and place that surround it, using our patented hands-on process.

POCKET GUIDE TO 20K HOMES Featured in NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL ARCHITECTURE and BEAUTIFUL HOMES ON A BUDGET this book gives you the quickest answers to the most complicated questions about Rural Studio’s 20K Home project.

S OLI D- T OOTH C I RCU LA R S A W B LADE

All “STAY SHARP” blades are made up of a series of dedicated and hard-working teeth, driven by their talent, intellect and energy to work in unison toward a common, progressive goal.

Ag-Wise and Otherwise

Rusty Smith’s

Cat’s Kitchen AT T H E M O R R ISE T T E H O USE

Celebration and Valediction Answers to Tool Jumble from page 6: 1. R ATCH E T S TR A P 2 . C AT’S PAW 3 . C AU L K I N G G U N 4 . SPEED S Q UA RE

DON’T MISS THE EVENT OF THE YEAR. W E’L L S H A R E O U R PRO G R ES S A N D DA N CE I N TO T H E E VE N I N G A F T ER SERV I N G U P O N E “ H A L E” O F A M E A L .

RUR ALSTUDIO.COM

M E AT O N O CC AS I O N!

Over 4500 Plates Served!

8448 AL-61, Newbern, AL 36765

E ACH YE A R

OPEN 7 DAYS

Invest in Rural Studio’s Future.

Please Visit www.supportruralstudio.org or Contact Our Development Officer Melissa Foster Denney melissa@auburn.edu 334.844.5436

Auburn University Rural Studio PO Box 278 Newbern, AL 36765

Kindly Deliver To:

Vol. 7 2017–18