First Congregational Church Hall

Getting Into the Weeds

April 13, 2026

The First Congregational Church Hall team has been hard at work!

A church Hall Team members woorks on correcting a building plan.

The Church Hall Team presents by powerpoint to Andrew Berman.

We had an insightful meeting with Andrew Berman, Founder of Andrew Berman Architect. He guided us to critique and define the look of the hall from the outside, as well as to refine a universal point of entry into the First Congregational Church’s front door. With Andrew’s comments in mind, we marched forward with a clear organizational strategy for the look and layout of the building.

2x6 Decking is held up behind a pieece of 3x12 Glue-Laminated Timber.

Two members of the Church Hall Team workshop with Pete Landon and Mike Newman.

The following week, we met with Mike Newman, Architect and Co-founder of SHED Studio in Chicago, Pete Landon, founder and Principal Architect of LBBA, and Katrina Van Valkenburgh, Managing Director of Corporation for Supportive Housing, Central Region, in Chicago. Mike, Pete, and Katrina further guided the organization of the interior of the church hall with further suggestions of adequate materiality.

We had the opportunity to show the First Congregational Church Hall design to all the members of the LOEB Fellowship from Harvard University! The LOEB Fellows gave useful advice on the presentation of the project. Later that same week, we met with much of the congregation for the first time. Updated interior and courtyard perspectives highlighted the big moments of the project. The congregation shared insights on both building layout and universal-access connection between the First Congregational Church and the new Church Hall.

The First Congregational Church Hall Team poses for a photo with their clients.

After meeting with the congregation, we checked in with landscape architect Mary Margaret Jones with Hargreaves Jones. Mary gave her advice on the new schemes and on viable plants for both the courtyard and surrounding site. Then, we got into the dirt and talked about site grading and watershed.

The First Congregational Church Hall team had our first executive review of the semester. We received feedback from Rural Studio faculty and teaching staff, of course, but also from Rusty Smith, Associate Director of Rural Studio and lead of the Front Porch Initiative, and Justin Miller, Head of Auburn University CADC’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. We showcased the design and received valuable feedback on key building details and eventual construction sequencing.

Photos of materials are strewn about, sitting on top of pieces of decking and glue-laminated timber.

The Church Hall team meets and workshops with Amanda Loper.

After Spring Break, we were able to meet once more with Amanda Loper, Principal Architect with David Baker Architects. Amanda shared her thoughts on honing the plan layout as well as on refining the universal access route to the front door of the church. Amanda also gave incredible guidance on drawing inspiration from local environments and conditions for source materials.

Two members of the Church Hall team pass the story-pole to be used with the transit in surveying the site.

Two Church Hall team members use a tape measure to mark out 10x10 squares on the site.

Since Amanda’s visit, we have been working on a new site survey of the church grounds. This refined survey will allow us to make more precise earthwork calculations and inform decisions on foundation details. So, back to the drawing board we go!

The First Congregational Church Hall Team's faces superimposed onto four cartoon flowers.

See you next time! Happy Spring!

Tags: church, community, timber

Plenty of Congregating

February 17, 2026

The First Congregational Church Hall Blog is back! Let us catch you up to speed on our progress.

A fifth-year student hugs a tree on the site of the First Congregational Church Hall.

A student ties a string to a stake to test building heights.

After a restful winter break, we hit the ground running and consulted Mary Margaret Jones with Hargreaves Jones for advice on landscape designs iterated before the new year. Mary Margaret provided valuable insight into the expected circulation of visitors and their interaction with the proposed courtyard schemes. After the meeting, we reanalyzed the role a courtyard plays in connecting the two buildings!

Three fifth year students work at their desks in studio.

After “Neckdown” Week, our team worked hard to produce renderings of key perspectives throughout the project. Perspectives included an approach to the new building from the door of the church, as well as an approach from the current parking lot. We created renderings for the two main schemes at play: a parallel oriented building and a perpendicularly oriented building. We showcased these views in a critical meeting with the client. Our client’s insights gave us much-needed direction. After the meeting, we decided to continue only with the parallel orientation.

A pin-up of perspective courtyard drawings and building sections.

Two fifth year students present to their client while using a physical model.

Two students work at their desks in studio, one is using a 3D modeling software and the other is drawing.

Kiel Moe, Professor of Practice of Architecture at Auburn University and practicing architect, stopped in to see the progression of the Timber Insulation Pods, two new student housing pods at Morrisette House. During his time in Hale County, he provided valuable critique of the First Congregational Church Hall. Each team member produced color pencil–rendered elevation drawings to develop ideas for the building cladding.

A student is coloring in a plan drawing of the First Congregational Church Hall project.

A fifth year student presents the First Congregational Church Hall project to Kiel Moe.

As we were digging more thoroughly into the design of the building, we found ourselves at a good place for review with Hank Koning and Julie Eizenberg, both founding partners and principal architects of Koning Eizenberg Architecture. They ran a workshop where they helped us reimagine what was possible with the interior of the First Congregational Church Hall itself. Hank and Julie have taught us to pair our future design iterations against the scenarios of events and circumstances that are important to the congregation!

Two fifth-year students present to Hank Koning and Julie Eizenberg.

Occupational, plan studies lay strewn out over a desk.

That’s all from the team this time, we can’t wait to see you in the next blog!

The members of the First Congregational Church Hall Team are photoshopped onto a image of the Penguins of Madagascar.

How Do You Even Roast Soup?

December 16, 2025

Welcome back to the First Congregational Church Hall Blog! We’re excited to show you all what we’ve been up to since Halloween Reviews.

Two students marking up site plan drawings with a scaled model beside them.

After drawing up plans and sections of three Church Hall building orientations, we decided it was time to get on site and stake out building footprints. We did this with twelve wooden stakes and three different colors of string, using a sledgehammer to drive the stakes into the ground. Our team drilled screws into the stakes at the same level as the sidewalk that leads to the First Congregational Church. Finally, we did the easy part: tying the string to the screws! Visualizing building footprints relative to the standing First Congregational Church informed our perception of building scale and appropriate proximity to the existing church.

5th year students helping each other drive stakes into the ground with a sledgehammer.

A stake holding two strings as an orientation mock-up.

We had the good fortune to receive feedback from consultants Frank Harmon, principal architect of Frank Harmon Architect, Philip Szostak, principal architect of Szostak Design, and Dan Wheeler, principal architect of Wheeler Kearns Architects. We were honored to show them not only how the First Congregational Church Hall design is shaping up but also what the First Congregational Church of Marion looks like in person. On site, we used the site model to discuss how narrative can inform processions through the site.

Additionally, Frank Harmon and Dan Wheeler led a studio-wide drawing workshop in which students were encouraged to interpret the architecture of downtown Greensboro through quick five-minute sketches.

The Church Hall team holds up their site model at the site of the First Congregational Church and receives feedback from Frank Harmon.

Sketchbooks with drawings are laid out across the sidewalk.

Three students stand next to an orientation mock-up at the site of the First Congregational Church of Marion.

Curious about the progress on the Timber Insulation Pods? The lap splice cuts have been made! We measured the overlapping moments of force on the bents (transverse rigid frames) and columns and conducted a series of cross-cuts against the grain. After a section was fully cross-cut, we used chisels and mallets to clear and smooth ridges. Now, the bents and columns are ready to be assembled! These glue-laminated timber columns and bents serve as a working mock-up for the structural strategy for the First Congregational Church Hall.

A 5th year student works at chiseling wood away for a lap-splice connection on a piece of glue-laminated timber.

Two students mark-up a piece of glue-laminated timber to prepare for a lap-splice.

After a restful Thanksgiving, we hunkered down and refined design iterations for Soup Roast! To better illustrate the approach to the building and the materials, we photo rendered hand-drawn perspectives. These renders proved instrumental in describing both the feel of the space and our attitude toward the Church Hall’s interior and exterior.

Perspective images of the First Congregational Church Hall laid out across a table.

A student pins up drawings and perspective drawings in preparation for Soup Roast reviews.

The highlight of the semester was presenting this project to an incredible lineup of reviewers for Soup Roast: Kim Clements and Joe Schneider, founders of JAS Design Build; Jake LaBarre, Associate with The Miller Hull Partnership; Joe Burns, structural engineer and Managing Principal with Thornton Tomasetti, as well as structural engineer for the Studio; Jim Adamson, Partner with Jersey Devil design build; and Sandy Bishop, first Executive Director of Lopez Community Land Trust. These professionals each shared insights and observations on how the schematics for the First Congregational Church Hall have progressed thus far. These reviewers all aided in a workshop the following day, collaborating to create new schemes building off the progress we’ve made so far.

Three students from the Church Hall team pin up their presentation for edits.

The Church Hall team stands at a pin-up and receives feedback.

Concluding our 5^th Year Studio Fall semester at Rural Studio, we are more excited and invigorated to continue designing the First Congregational Church Hall than ever before! Next semester will include a closer look at building and landscape details, as well as further study of how architecture can serve a congregation and community. We hope you all have a Happy Holiday season!

The Church Hall team edited into an image of dancing elves with "Happy Holidays" written as a greeting.

New Hall on the Block

November 21, 2025

Welcome to the inaugural blog post for the First Congregational Church Hall team! We’ve been hard at work both in the studio and building on the Fabrication Pavilion, and we are excited to show you what we’ve developed so far for the historical church in Marion, Alabama, a congregation that dates to 1869.

A 5th year student points at a full scale wall assembly drawing pinned up on the wall.

Two students work together on marking the unfinished ends of a glue-laminated column with a speed square and skill saw.

The two new 5th-year projects are a church hall in Marion and a home for a tornado survivor in Newbern. When we were presented with these two projects, it was made clear that both project assemblies should use donated, on-hand timber materials, and should be insulated continuously on the exterior of the building. We were also challenged to build two new 3rd-year Timber Insulation Pods that will act as mock-ups, giving us the opportunity to test the palette of materials and construction for the house and the church hall.

The First Congregational Church of Marion was originally constructed in 1871 by freed slaves as well as representatives from the American Missionary Association. Civil rights leader and former United Nations Ambassador for the United States Andrew Young first served as a pastor for the First Congregational Church of Marion. The church was second to the construction of the Lincoln Normal School, completed in 1869, as a space to educate teachers and freedmen after the Civil War. The Lincoln Normal School was built next to the First Congregational Church of Marion but burned down in 1887. Coretta Scott King attended the second Lincoln Normal School a street south of the church.

Diagrammatic site drawings of the First Congregational Church and the potential adjacent building.

An axonometric image of the First Congregational Church in Marion, Alabama: the site of one of the 5th year thesis projects.

Our goal, a century and a half later, is to provide the First Congregational Church of Marion an adjacent structure and improved landscape to revitalize the congregation and engage the community. The project scope is composed of a roughly 1,200-square-foot, multi-use enclosed structure as well as a landscaped exterior space between the new structure and existing historical church. Now that we understand the project scope, without further ado, meet the team!

The four students from the First Congregational Church Hall team stand and smile.

From left to right, we have Tanner Wallace (from Birmingham, AL), McAllister Tucker (from Fairfax, VA), Lawson Faulk (from Dothan, AL), and Emma Johnson (from Birmingham, AL).

After designing teams, we hit the ground running! The full Halloween Reviews presentation gave us much to prepare. We put pencil to paper on iterating our first major design decisions. How should the building be oriented? Where does the building sit relative to the historical church? But, as you might know, iterating is not the only element of Halloween Reviews. Speaking of which, we heard there was a UFO sighting, right here in Hale County. We also heard the beings in this UFO were here to visit Rural Studio! Say hello to our Halloween Reviews visitors…from outer space!

Four students dressed as aliens pretend to drive a cardboard UFO in a circle at a costume parade in the Newbern Library courtyard.

A 5th year student holds up his hands after being stained blue from an indigo workshop at the Sumac art studio in Greensboro, Alabama.

A 5th year student sits and helps a child paint a pumpkin at the Newbern Library pumpkin carve event.

Following Halloween Reviews, we implemented as much advice from our encouraging reviewers as possible. Our scope widened as we began digging deeper into both the interior and exterior design. We explored existing courtyards and landscapes local to Hale and Perry Counties to understand local precedents. Alongside sketching for the First Congregational Church Hall, we’ve had to shift our attention as a group of eight to construction of the Timber Insulation Pods. We’ve made significant progress on cutting and tapering the glue-laminated columns and bents this past week. Next up for the Timber Insulation Pods is getting into that lap-splice cut!

A student lays on the ground with the glue-laminated column and bent layout that will be used in one of the 3rd year living pods designed and built by the 5th year cohort.

Three students work at a table, creating a scaled down structural model that tests glue-laminated bents.

We’ve received significant help from our notable guest reviewers with the beginning stages of our project! Thanks to Roy Decker with Duvall Decker Architects; Amanda Loper and Cameron Acheson with David Baker Architects; Thomas Paterson with Lux Populi; Mary Margret Jones with Hargreaves Jones Landscape Architecture; Billie Tsien with Studio Tsien; and esteemed consultant Elise Jaffe for sharing their insights on our initial designs. We still have much to learn, and we hope you will stay tuned to see how we progress with both the living Timber Insulation Pods and the First Congregational Church Hall!