Author: Tricia Smith

Onwards and Upwards!

February 26, 2026

The last time we saw you, we were gearing up for the greatest mock-up, and boy, do we have updates for you.

The first step in creating the “greatest mock-up” was testing the design and construction of the piers for the dining house. The team augured footings and built formwork for four piers and two concrete pours that would eventually be the first step toward understanding the implications of our design.

After completing the piers for the Dining House’s mock-up, we attacked the main foundation for the mock-up. Starting with trenching for the foundation footing, the team enlisted some help from friendly Welsh student visitors to the studio.

Students looking over strings with rebar cages in the ground, preparing for a concrete pour — Ensuring alignements inbetween metal structure

Students placing tarp over foundation pier formwork for a mockup. — Ensuring alignements inbetween metal structure

Shortly after the trench for the elevated slab was dug and poured, the block mason came out and did an excellent job laying out the block in its elaborate design.

Following the block mason’s help on the Dining “House’s mock-up”, the team worked quickly to finish up the elevated slab. We filled in the block perimeter with insulation, soil, and waterproofing so we could finish the last concrete pour of the mock-up when we get back from Christmas break.

Image of the mockup foundation prior to preparing the slab — Foundation infill prior to preparing slab

Image of the Mockup Slab tamping the gravel flat before pouring the concrete — Foundation infill prior to preparing slab

Students preparing to pour the concrete for the mockup slab with the lining and rebar in place — Rebar layed over top

3 students working to pour the concrete for the mockup slab with a concrete mixer and wheel barrels — Rebar layed over top

After some much-needed time off and with families, the team got right back to work with the last concrete pour. Once we smoothed out the concrete floor, the Dining House finally had a finished floor to begin testing the construction of the building we designed.

After the week of Neckdown and the subsequent completion of the mock-up foundation, our team jumped right into one of the initial layers of a building: flashing. The initial test explored a galvanized steel flashing profile that will hold in the white oak cladding.

Photo of student cutting the flashing for the slab — Cutting flashing

Two students setting the flashing in place for the slab — Cutting flashing

Step 4: Framing:

Student working on the framing for the mockup walls. — Measuring framing

Student taking care to infill the column base plates with grout — Measuring framing

Bonus round.

The team built a second mockup to refine the oak cladding. The walls are white oak exterior boards, salvaged from the Supershed. On the exterior of the building, the weathered wood is displayed, while 1″ white strips are turned on their end grain, giving a different texture on the interior walls. Behind these 1″ panels, black acoustic material will give the wall a baffle-like function in the dining and kitchen room.

Students laying out patterns for the white oak pieces. — Laying out pattern

Two students working with a table saw to cut down the white oak pieces. — Laying out pattern

Students pausing to examine the battens they put together for the mockup. — Studying framing

Student setting in place the white oak board on the zip sheathing — Studying framing

Many more updates to come soon. We have continued experimenting and tweaking material and form. Meanwhile, major action is taking place on the north end of the campus at Rural Studio. The Dining House is taking off with the beginning steps to fixing parking and drainage infrastructure, while also preparing the groundwork for a foundation! More on this later!

Tags: foundation, mockup

“Neckdown” Week: Planting trees, planting our feet, using our hands

February 9, 2026

Another “Neckdown” week ended in success! Neckdown is where the entire student, faculty, and staff help out in the community by doing fix-up jobs. Everyone gets down into the dirt and jumps in the ditch. No project is too small or too big, and we have lots of hands.

This semester, the Studio worked on a multitude of projects both on and off the main campus. While the Morrisette House was getting cleaned top to bottom, the Fabrication Pavilion was getting some new structural fasteners put in the trusses and columns to prepare for a new roof. The Farm installed new planter beds over Christmas break, so we got them up and running with dirt and seeds.

Student planting new seedlings in the planterbeds

Instructor David Hill talking to students about planting trees

Meanwhile, some of the crew helped the CLT Core House plant trees and do some last-minute cleaning. Trees were the order of business elsewhere, too: We helped both the Dining House team and the Smith Park team plant trees. And we gave both teams a hand milling lumber.

Students posing with Milled lumber on a trailer

We also accomplished other tasks at our local parks. At Perry Lakes Park, we replaced walkway boards. At Lions Park, we repaired bleachers, fences, and the concession stand, and we rebuilt the gate and gave it a fresh coat of paint. You would never guess who helped rebuild the gate: our fabulous alumnus Zane Morgan of Blackshop in Birmingham, Alabama.

Students repainting the large entrance sign at the Lions Park

Students posing with lumber for the Dining House

Students and Faculty gathering for end of Neck down Announcements

A shout-out to David Hill, who brought out landscape architecture students to plant trees and care for other parts of the landscaping.
All in all, the spring Neckdown week was productive, and the Studio is ready to get back to work on the projects at hand!

Tags: neckdown

Turning a New Leaf 🍂🍃

November 24, 2025

With the fall season in full swing, the team has been busy-bees working away on two mock-ups for the project and some crucial site work to prepare to excavate the foundation for the building!

In September, the team met with Joe Burns, structural engineer for the Studio. After thoroughly analyzing the load paths of the building, the team realized the structure needed a ridge beam to evenly support the loads and span of the rafters. This meant that the team needed to re-analyze the aesthetic decisions and details, meaning it was time to do some mock-ups.

Ridge Beam Axon on Digital Model — Axon of our new ridge beam “drop-in” process

Firstly, the team jumped into a quick, one-day mockup. To understand the “noise” of structure in conjunction with the materials they’re using we created a small corner of the building with tongue-and-groove decking wrapping up the side and ceiling of the building–meeting the white oak leftover from the fabrication pavilion–which will play a crucial role in the building’s identity. As most of the white oak cladding is rough sawn and weathered, we tested a few different finishing processes to the wood: planning, sanding, and leaving rough. We were able to understand the details we have been imagining and working out what truly makes the space “noisy.”

White Oak Material Before Finishing — White oak before any finishing

White Oak Material After Finishing — White oak before any finishing

With great excitement, the team also tackled some site work. The first step was removing trees at the back of the foundation and relocating the water line. With the help of Mason, the team successfullylocated the old water line and redirected it in one day! Now, the site has begun to look like a real construction zone. Another element of the site’s progress has been the clearing of trees for the car park/driveway. Once the row of trees was taken out, it was an amazing site to see some of the designs come to fruition. Reactions have been positive thus far!

Excavation of Waterline around Dining House — New waterline around Dining House

Students Putting Together new Water Pipe — New waterline around Dining House

The next steps will be clearly defining the parking by infilling gravel and parking stops, as well as fixing irrigation on the site. With the helpfulness of these tasks being complete, we’ve been better able to visualize the building on the site, stringing out the porch, and finishing floor heights relative to the ground.

Excavators working to Clear Trees for Parking — The new view from parking!

Photo of Cut through in the forest for New Campus Parking — The new view from parking!

While we wait excitedly for more excavation work to take place, we are focusing our efforts on the mock-up of all mock-ups. This one will be a traditional Rural Studio “doghouse” type mock-up testing everything from structure to cladding to glazing techniques. We know that this test of the building will give the team the confidence to understand details we are unclear about. Overall it will be a 8’ x 6’ floorplan testing interior to exterior details and, most importantly, the sequencing we really plan to do in the future with the real Dining House!

Detail Axon Drawing of Dormer — Drawings & details of our mock-up of all mock-ups!

Drawings & details of our mock-up of all mock-ups!

Stay tuned for more updates on the G.M.O.A.T. (greatest mock-up of all time).

Tags: dininghouse, mockups, natural ventilation, reuseproject, rsleftovers

Forging Forward

September 24, 2025

The Dining House Team is in full “leftover” swing. Over the last month, the group has been finalizing drawing sets for civil and foundation work, fine-tuning key details, and preparing for a mock-up in the yard.

With breaking ground just around the corner, the team is prioritizing finding continuity and simplicity in how details are coming together, finding a clear logic for the assembly of the Dining House. The mock-up will be an opportunity to test these methods, especially on the irregular reclaimed materials that have become so integral to the design and logic of the building.

Next up, the team is starting construction on the mock-up, preparing to fabricate the bents with the lumber milled earlier in the year. Roughly the size of a small chicken coop, the mock-up will dive into the roof assembly and materiality with reused items.

Tags: designbuild, research project, rsleftovers

Getting Detailed

July 30, 2025

The “Diners,” a.k.a. the Dining House team, have been refining their design palette. The team has used the boiling hot Hale County summer in part to let the design detailing simmering. And they’re preparing for an exciting, eventful start to the upcoming semester.

Let’s take a closer look at what the team has been whipping up this summer!

Eager to zest up the day-to-day design process, the team started June with a small mock-up on concrete. They let thoughts and drawings marinate in the studio while they considered how leftover wood from the mill could create interesting textures for the concrete piers. Accordingly, the group created a set of four 12” x 14” wood forms to experiment with wood textures. Then, a few days later, they broke the samples free from the forms and took notes on their samples. The team learned a lot even from blending the batter-like concrete mixture, and they now understand the textures they might use.

Removing Wood Textures from Concrete Sample

Getting back into the Studio, the team further developed structural details in preparation for a meeting with Joe Burns, our engineering consultant.

The drawings helped define how some of the architectural components would come together: the column-to-pier and rafter-to-column connections, as well as the ridge tie connection. The engineer clarified these details with specifics like bolt sizes and dimensions of metal connectors. One goal behind the “structural bent” design—the transverse rigid frame—is creating a simple visual palette with milled lob lobby pine and minimal metal work.

With more context on the structural bent, the group also has been resolving some spatial proportions in the north and south rooms, as well as studying window details with insulated glass panels stored in the Studio’s barn. Overall, the team has been focusing the recipe on responding to the specific ingredients at their disposal. With the help of Jake LaBarre, the team mocked up the Dining House’s space under the Fabrication Pavilion to test its floor-plan dimensions and heights. And the team reduced the size of the glass connections on the insulated panels with the help of Dan Wheeler.

Now with more details reaching al dente, the team can focus on refining the site drainage, plumbing, and electrical plans, and on finishing the foundation drawings, leading them, hopefully, to a groundbreaking very, VERY soon.

Speaking of finishing drawings…take a look at the latest renderings of the Dining House!