Author: RS 3rd-Year Team

A West Alabama Welcome

September 25, 2023

New kids in Hale (Get to know the 3rd-year class!)

The fall semester 3rd-year students have landed themselves in Hale! They’ve been through the classic “Neckdown” Week experience and are settling into the daily routine of life in Newbern with a busy schedule. Here to introduce themselves and their “hot takes,” please meet:

Elizabeth Helms is from Dothan, Alabama. Hot take: Milk is better with ice in it.

Hannah Wieland is from Fairhope, Alabama. Hot take: Environmental mistreatment is not a consumer problem.

Tanner Wallace is from Birmingham, Alabama. Hot take: Auburn will beat Bama this year.

Caitlin Ranheim is from Brooklyn, New York. Hot take: Taylor Swift made Kanye famous.

Casey Dillard is from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Hot take: Crocs are a must-have shoe.

Jack Felder is from Savannah, Georgia. Hot take: Morgan Wallen stinks.

McAllister Tucker is from Fairfax, Virginia. Hot take: The movie The Wolf of Wall Street is bad.

Kati Warner is from Huntsville, Alabama. Hot take: The live-action Cat in the Hat is the greatest movie in the world.

Bailey Kennedy is from Memphis, Tennessee. Hot take: Dasani tastes good. Spring water is the real criminal.

Kylie Kennedy is from Birmingham, Alabama. Hot take: Architecture is hard-core arts and crafts.

Luke Bradberry is from Suwanee, Georgia. Hot take: We aren’t actually in school right now.

Emma Johnson is from Birmingham, Alabama. Hot take: Pancakes are better with peanut butter on them.

Emma Avery is from Enterprise, Alabama. Hot take: Pineapple is the best pizza topping.

Shannon Brennan is from Newburyport, Massachusetts. Hot take: Cruise ships are a scam.

Cayden Davis is from Coleman, Alabama. Hot take: Auburn will go 10 and 2.

Students laying in hammocks under pavillion.

Model Homes or Pod Life?

The 3rd-year class is split up in living spaces this year! While you may be familiar with Rural Studio’s typical “pod life,” the rest of the crew is down the road testing out the Model Homes. Not only did we get to take the annual 20K House tour and make trading cards for each home, but some of us get to live in Joanne’s, Mac’s, and Dave’s Model Homes. When asked how she liked living in Mac’s Model Home, 3rd-year McAllister Tucker answered that she enjoyed, “getting to share a bathroom with only two people and having an in-house kitchen.” She also said an upside is, “having donkeys as neighbors, but the downside is you can smell them.”

Bailey Kennedy, living in the Cardboard Pod at Morrisette House, said that she likes how the pods are on the main campus, “it’s an awesome spot for Enos [hammocks], and it feels like you are a part of the tradition of Rural Studio.” The Model Homes may have donkeys, but the Pod residents are visited every night by Booty, a wandering dog who was first seen scooting across the lawn nearby!

Outside of shared meals and class, Auburn football is what brings these two groups together. The Model Home kids came to the pods to watch the Auburn-California game on the projector one Saturday. No matter where they live, each 3rd-year student is enjoying their time among their friends at their home in Hale.

Girl and boy move lumber into neat pile in yard.

Students gathered on residential jobsite discussing drawings.

Studio Kickoff

This semester, the 3rd-year class of Fall 2023 is charged with the task of completing Rosie’s Home. This has been an ongoing project since Fall of 2021. We started with creating a digital 3D model in Rhinoceros of what has been built so far. Not only did we learn which details still needed designing, but we figured out stick-frame construction in the span of a week and got to know the ins and outs of this project. During pin-ups at the site, we were able to meet our clients, Rosie and Frankie.

In this project, we are exploring possibilities with healthy building alternatives, specifically with insulation and interior finish materials. We started with a tour of all the 20K Homes Rural Studio has built in the last 18 years. To understand these precedents, we made a set of trading cards of all the houses. The cards included the materials used in wall construction, as well as what principles they embodied according to “The 9 Foundations of a Healthy Building” by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

To begin the design process, we broke into teams based on particular interests for the semester. The selections are as follows:

Millwork and Framing Team: Shannon Brennan, Elizabeth Helms, Caitlin Renheim

Enclosures Team: Bailey Kennedy, McAllister Tucker, Kati Warner, and Hannah Wieland

Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Team: Luke Bradberry, Cayden Davis, Casey Dillard, and Jack Felder

Interiors Team: Emma Avery, Emma Johnson, Kylie Kendall, and Tanner Wallace

Then, we split up and discussed the design focuses and procedures we would have to work through as a group of fifteen and in site teams. After, we were assigned to do interior perspectives of the living space so we could all decide together the big picture questions of designing the inside of the house. Once we make these decisions as a class, we can begin the last phase of construction—the interior space!

Woodshop, What’s Up?

In the Woodshop this semester, the 3rd-years are going to build renowned chairs! We are split up into five groups of three. Each group is going to tackle a different chair designed by a famous architect and complete it by the end of the semester. The instructor for Woodshop class is Steve Long, and he has started by giving interactive tutorials on processing wood and using the equipment.

Before starting the chair, we have been making detailed drawings and storyboards of the production process. In order to get us more familiar with woodworking, our first mini project is designing and making a cutting board.

Group of students sitting under a tree in the grass.

History Seminar

Dick Hudgens’ first class in Seminar of Aspects of Design was a dye workshop with Aaron Sanders Head. He taught the class how to make dyes naturally from plants so we could make our own watercolor palettes. Our first field trip in the class was a visit to Glencairn! Glencairn is a house built in the 1830s which has been preserved for visitors. The class toured the house and drew the ground floor plan along with a front elevation.

Group of students gathered to look at 19th century house.

Table covered in jars of watercolor and papers with colored squares.

Life in Hale…

At Rural Studio, we like to stay busy whether we’re building houses, making watercolors from plants, or constructing chairs from scratch. We carry our creative enthusiasm into after-hours. In our downtime, we love to venture around Hale County. We make our way to Greensboro every Thursday night for trivia or bingo at The Stable, or some nights we head to Nick’s Crispy Chicken on Highway 14 where you can find the best catfish po’ boy this side of the Mississippi River. Another great spot is the Newbern Mercantile, known to us regulars as “The Merc,” right in the heart of Newbern. On the weekends, we love to seek out antique shops and visit local markets.

We’ve probably spent more time outside in the last few weeks, than all the years of childhood recess added up. Just the other morning, some students visited a previous 5th-year project, the Birding Tower in Perry Lakes Park. Here they climbed five flights of stairs just to watch the sunrise. We heard it was well worth it. The country has its perks even if it’s just driving around to watch the sunset over the catfish ponds.

Two girls hanging out of car watching sunset.

Check back soon to see us hit the ground running on site at Rosie’s Home! The final construction push has begun and we can’t wait to show you what’s happening!

Tags: chairclass, historyseminar, polebarnhome, postframehouse, Rosie's Home, rs3rdyears, woodshop

That’s All Folks

June 14, 2023

Howdy everyone! It’s us, the 3rd-years, for one final time. We’ve had such a great time this semester and couldn’t possibly express how much we’ve enjoyed our stay here at Rural Studio! However, that is exactly what we are going to try to do in this blog, at least since the last time we updated you. Anyway, before we begin, we hope you’ve enjoyed reading as much as we have enjoyed writing, it’s been a pleasure. Now on to the main event.

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Since our last report, we have made some significant site-related decisions as well as major construction progress on Rosie’s Home. We finished sheathing the whole home, installed windows and doors, added window openings on the north and south ends, and installed our metal siding on the back and on the east roof, with the help of the leftovers. As you can see, we’ve been busy, and surprisingly, we enjoyed it. After all of the work we’ve done this semester, it was so nice to finally see some major visual changes, and we are so excited to see how the project progresses when next semester comes in the fall!

Whose studio is it, anyways?

Just to preface, this section might be a bit sparse, BUT, that doesn’t mean we haven’t been working hard! Since we’ve been so busy on site, a lot of our studio time has been spent out on the site making important decisions about the future of the project. To make these decisions, we took our work out to the project to get a better visual representation of what our design decisions will eventually become and how they could affect the project in a more tangible way. Some of these decisions include the front porch design, the west facade, and the landscaping, which no other semester can change! Just kidding. We are excited to see how future students push our early designs forward.

Ok, I might have lied a little bit about this section being sparse. If you were a close reader of our past blogs, the site cats had kittens. SHHH! It’s a secret. They are very cute and made our final work days kinda distracting.

Wood = Good

Last time we spoke, we were working on a mock-up of our cabinets system for Rosie’s Home. Well, we did that. It went well. Taking what we learned from our mock-ups, we immediately began building as fast and as much as we could of the final cabinet systems, which will be installed next semester. Safely, of course. We were able to construct and finish roughly 70% or so of the cabinets and have been working on preparing next semester’s students to be able to get right to building when they arrive.

Class is now dismissed

For our final history class, we took a trip to Columbus, MS, where we visited the Temple Heights Mansion and the Waverly Mansion. The weather was perfect, and having a few more opportunities to sketch with Dick Hudgens was the perfect way to end our semester.

The Ol’ Pig Roast

As every student of Rural Studio does, we finished our time in Newbern by attending the famous Pig Roast festival. It was a weekend of food, fun, and presentations. We got the opportunity to present our work on Rosie’s Home and cabinets to everyone in attendance and got to watch our fellow 5th-year friends and “leftovers” (graduates staying to complete work), present all about their amazing projects. We ended the night with some pig, which we didn’t have to catch, and some great music.

A Fond Farewell

It was so amazing getting the opportunity to come and learn at Rural Studio this semester, and we will cherish our time here for the rest of our lives. It was a pleasure writing these blogs for all of you readers, and we can’t wait to come back for our 5th year! Thank you – The 3rd-Years

We’re Still Here!

March 30, 2023

Hello! We, the 3rd-year students, are back (again). We have returned from spring break well rested, newly tan, and ready to work! Since our last blog, we’ve been very busy working on site and in our other classes and are excited to share more about our time here at Rural Studio.

Live From Site

Since our last update, we have made steady and significant progress on the construction of Rosie’s Home. We finally finished the rafters and tied down and bracketed everything that we could. Trust me, we checked. Before we left for break we were able to put up the first set of roof sheathing, which was exciting as it was our first major visual change to the home. Soon we will be working on the gable ends and how we can work more natural lighting into the project.

Some days Rosie’s cats will come hangout on our wood piles and some days we wish we could take a nap just like them.

Studio Happenings

In the Studio, we are continuing our research and exploration of the front porch design. We took our early work and developed a series of mock-ups for a “long-term” hand rendering drawing of our selected porch. These types of drawings have historically been done in past studios and we are very excited to contribute to that “legacy.” Recently, we had a charrette outside of Red Barn to start early designs of Rosie’s porch and the surround area. This was new for some of us and was high productive but also a fun experience.

We also spent some time building our own drafting boards, since we don’t have our own, I know I know the new wave is so lame.

I wonder what this ancient technology was used for…

Wood Shop Could Shop Wood

Continuing from where we left off, we have made significant strides in the design and construction of Rosie’s cabinet system. We have been working to create a more “complete” set of drawings so that we can construct a mock-up cabinet for review as well as eventually build the finished system for installation. Through reviews and research, we were able to learn about last semester’s cabinets and combine them with our own ideas to reach a compromised design.

History In The Making

Since we last spoke, we have visited five houses and produced four water colors, using our custom dyes, for our history class. These field trips included visits to Magnolia Grove in Greensboro, Jemison Mansion in Tuscaloosa, and The Gaineswood Mansion in Demopolis. The last of which was where we encountered a scary doll. Spooky. At each home we were tasked with two sketches, utilizing the magic proportions trick, brought to you by Dick Hudgens, and line weighting to try and get as close as possible to a realistic but quick drawing of the building.

On The Outside

Outside of our busy days working and building and just being fun and interesting people, we like to spend our time playing pickleball with the 5th-year students, who we always beat, and visiting the Wayside Bakery to get a nice snack.

Until Next Time

We have had a blast here in Newbern so far and can’t wait to see what we’ll get up to next, hopefully all good things. The flowers are blooming and the sun is out so we have high hopes for the rest of the semester!

Until then, the 3rd-year students

Tags: designbuild, polebarnhome, polebarnhouse, rs3rdyears

A Windy Welcome

February 8, 2023

The 3rd-year students are back! Rural Studio has welcomed its new students to campus this spring, kicking off the semester with a tornado scare, some porch sitting, and five fresh faces.

A Warm Newbern Welcome

Before the storied Neckdown Week, we picked up right where last semester’s class left off at Rosie’s Home. We are tasked with finishing construction and designing a front porch for the project. But before that, we slowed things down and went on a Hale County front porch tour, as research of course. Our first stop was with Rosie and Frankie, meeting them for some of Frankie’s famous hamburgers in their front yard, taking in the surroundings and getting to know our clients.

students eat lunch at Rosie's home — Lunch at Rosie’s

Conversing outside of Rosie's home — Lunch at Rosie’s

Our next stop was at the Myers’ Home where we enjoyed some lemonade and Judith’s homemade cookies out on the porch. Being a Rural Studio project, the Myers’ porch was a perfect opportunity for us to learn how students in the past had tackled a front porch and how we could learn from their design.

Students talking at a table at the Myer's home — Snacks at the Myers’ porch

Getting lemonade at the Myer's home — Snacks at the Myers’ porch

Next on the agenda was an early morning coffee break with the “leftover” students living at Spencer House. Being new to the program, it was nice for us to get to talk to some Rural Studio veterans and discuss all sorts of things, but most importantly, how they use their own front porch. Here we learned some of the history behind the Spencer House and got to meet Linus, the porch cat.

Students talking at spencer house in the early morning — Coffee with the Spencer House crew

Leftovers on the spencer house porch — Coffee with the Spencer House crew

Moving right along, we next visited Reggie and his porch at another past project, Rev. Walker’s Home. This project is a pole barn structure too, like Rosie’s! We took the time to sketch and measure to get a better understanding of the dimensions we will be working with. After all of that hard work, we took the time to relax and listen to some music.

Students outside of Reggie's home — Reggie’s Home

Student playing guitar at Reggie's home — Reggie’s Home

Taking a break from Newbern, our next stop had us traveling to Whitsitt to meet longtime friends of the Studio, Mike and Frances Sullivan. After enjoying some grilled cheese, taco soup, pound cake, and pecan pie, we did some field work, measuring and sketching the outdoor “shed,” to understand how porches can work in unfamiliar settings. We also saw a buzzing beehive.

Students outside of the Sullivan's shed — The Sullivan’s “porch”

Students measuring the Sullivan's shed — The Sullivan’s “porch”

Students measuring a driveway (closeup) — Measurements to the road!

Lunch at the sullivan"s home — Measurements to the road!

Wrapping up our Hale County front porch tour, we headed to Greensboro to meet Tim Higgins and Aaron Sanders Head to have an afternoon porch sitting. Here we were able to experience a porch similar to Spencer house but one that lived close to the road and close to town. Being so close to infrastructure, this was a great opportunity to study the relationship between the front porch and sound, especially that of semi trucks. Ew!

students talking with Tim and Aaron — Hanging out with Tim and Aaron

Students measuring Tim and Aaron's porch — Hanging out with Tim and Aaron

First Neckdown of 2023

Student painting at the Newbern Playground — Painting at the Newbern Playground

Student cleaning the stairs of the Newbern Firehouse — Painting at the Newbern Playground

Our third full week began at 7:00 AM every morning and saw us helping out around Newbern and Greensboro with Neckdown Week. We helped clean and paint the Bodark Amphitheater, build new raised beds for the farm, fix some plumbing post-freeze, paint the Safe House Museum, repair the Newbern Firehouse, and paint the Newbern playground.

The Return of the 3rds (to Studio)

After moving into our new studio in the Red Barn, we started by taking what we learned from our front porch study and began working on long section drawings. We incorporated the measurements we took as well as the experiential aspects of the visits. The drawings also help create a multimedia drawing with the goal of summarizing our time on the porches. See the finished drawings next month!

Student work (porch study) — Drafts of our porch study drawings

Student work (porch study 2) — Drafts of our porch study drawings

Report from the Woodshop

Our first week of Woodshop class was, to say the least, solid. Hah! We began by studying the past semester’s work on Rosie’s cabinet system and eventually presented a good old-fashioned critique on our thoughts and observations of our peers’ work.

Students talking about cabinets in the wood shop — Discussing cabinets with Steve

Then, we were introduced to our first project, a cutting board!

Color Theory

For our first History class, we met with Aaron to learn how to make our own watercolor/paint dye using foraged materials from around the area including black walnuts, onion skin, iron, cosmos, and sumac leaves. We also learned how to create our own charcoal sticks to use later on in the semester.

Students mixing dye — Learning about the dye making process

Students mixing dye around a fire — Learning about the dye making process

Student charcoal pencils — Look at those colors!

To New Beginnings

We are so happy to finally be here at Rural Studio and can’t wait to share more in the coming months! See you soon!

Tags: pole barn home, Rosie's Home, rs3rdyears

The 4th Month: 3rd-Year Edition

December 12, 2022

As the 3rd-year class moves into the end of the semester we’re working hard on our projects to finish strong in 2022. The Rosie’s Home team compiled construction document sets and began framing the roof. In the Woodshop, 3rd-years started final cabinet construction and drew up storyboards to help hand the project over to next semester’s 3rd-year class. Finally, our History Seminar wrapped up with one big final field trip to Columbus, Mississippi, to see some incredible houses of the Federalist and Greek Revival styles.

On Site Happenings

Things have been moving quickly on site at Rosie’s Home. Since raising the ridge beam, we began framing the rest of the roof. This started with the installation of the rafters at the correct pitch.

3rd-year students attach the roof rafters to the ridge beam

While a team on the ground carefully measured and cut each rafter, another team climbed the scaffolding to secure each rafter into place until hurricane ties can be attached. As the rafters went up, the form of the house really began to take shape!

Once all the rafters were raised, we constructed the large tension members that span across the home. These were partly assembled on the ground and lifted up to the scaffolding to be fit in place.

3rd-year Students assemble the roof rafters in the middle bays of the house

Once fitted, the final pieces of each joist were nailed into place. While these teams were constructing the roof, others were working on the house’s enclosure assembly. We began by cutting away the ZIP sheathing where it covered the doors and windows.

Completed Zip Sheathing under the pole Barn

Once all the rough openings were cut, we taped up all the seams and holes in the ZIP to ensure it stays waterproof. In our last week on site, we also prepared our presentation for Rural Studio’s annual Soup Roast!

This included a final review of all our construction documents with our professors and planning out our final presentation at the site.

Woodshop Wrap-Up

In the Woodshop, we began construction of Rosie’s cabinets. We began by organizing and preparing all of the pieces to be cut. This included a number of templates and cut sheets that ensured uniformity across all of our cabinets. Once all the prep work was done, it was all hands on deck!

We worked methodically to cut, plane, sand, and assemble. In our last days, we gathered and packaged all the unassembled pieces to hand off to next semester’s team of 3rd-year students.

Students begin to understand how to assemble the cabinet faces

Along with the pieces for assembly, we created detailed sets of construction documents and a storyboard so that next semester’s team can quickly and easily pick up where we left off.

The Last History Class

Our final class for our History Seminar was a day-long field trip to Columbus, Mississippi! We set out from Newbern early in the morning.

The day began at Riverview, where we had the opportunity to talk to the home’s owner, who had an expansive collection of period-accurate, mid1800s furniture and decorations.

Riverview is one of the finest examples of Greek Revival mansion’s in the South. It was constructed in the early 1850s, and one of its most striking features is a cupola filled with colorful stained glass.

The Spiral Staircase to the Cupola at Riverview

After Riverview, we stopped for a barbecue lunch at The Little Dooey and made our way to the beautiful Temple Heights mansion. We spent time touring the grounds and drawing elevations.

The Greek Revival mansion sits on a beautiful, lush plot that we all enjoyed relaxing on. Finally, we stopped at the Waverly Mansion. The mansion had recently undergone a large restoration and expansion, which created an immersive experience as we toured the estate.

The Mansion has a breathtaking atrium that travels the entirety of its four floors!

Looking up the 4 floors in the main entrance to Waverly Mansion

Looking down 4 floors into the Waverly Mansion entrance hall

We ended the day with a dinner at Harvey’s Restaurant with our professor and said goodbye to the class for the semester.

Soup Roast

Our final event of the semester was Rural Studio’s annual Soup Roast! Attendees visited each of the Studio’s current projects and watched presentations from their teams. These included a presentation from the 3rd-year students at Rosie’s Home.

We pinned up all of our work from the semester on site, and visiting reviewers provided feedback on the project. This critique will carry over and help Spring semester’s 3rd-years get started on the project. At the end of the day the studio gathered for a hearty soup meal.

Awards were given out for last month’s Beaux Arts watercolors and the site sketchbooks we had been keeping. Jenna took home the award for best watercolor, and Amanda took home the honor of best sketchbook!

student paintings on a table at Soup Roast

We’ve all enjoyed our semester at Rural Studio! We faced a number of challenges, ranging from extreme weather to smelly roadkill, but we faced them all with determination and a passion for what we do. Our time in Newbern has taught us many skills that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives, and for that we couldn’t be more grateful.

Group Photo of students teachers and clients

Until next time, Hale County!

Tags: pole barn home, Rosie's Home, rs3rdyears, rural expansion