Rural Studio Blog

Welcome back to the 3rd-year blog! Buckle up: this is going to be a big end of semester update.

Site/Studio: Raise the Roof

With the trusses over the house officially in place, we were excited to move on to the next phase of the build: securing the roof sheathing and beginning work on the scissor trusses over the workshop. Roof sheathing, the wooden layer that sits on top of the roof trusses, protects the interior of the house and supports the metal roofing above. One team cut the sheathing, hoisting it up onto the roof and nailing it into place. It was exciting to watch the roof come together piece by piece.

The common trusses over the house were lifted with the crane; the scissor trusses, on the other hand, were lifted entirely by hand. All 14 trusses were placed onto the laminated veneer lumber (LVL) beams, centered, made plumb, and then braced with diagonal pieces. To reach the tops of the trusses, we harnessed in for the first time, which made the process both safe and memorable. It felt like a big moment for the team, and a sign of how far the project had come. 

With the sheathing well on its way to being completed for Pig Roast, our enclosures team started installing doors and windows with the help of Steve Long. This means that the house is now officially dried in, which is a huge milestone that allows us to begin focusing on the interior.

Back in the studio, we spent hours working together to think through how to create the best possible living space for Mark, including the potential for more than one person to live there in the future. We broke into smaller teams and developed two different schemes, then shared our ideas and received helpful feedback that led us to a final decision. After framing interior walls, the space began to feel more complete, and Mark’s house is starting to feel like home! 

Woodshop: “You’re Sitting Me!”

Our chair work moved along steadily before completion! Each group of 3rd-years worked hard to perfect the craft of each of their chairs, four different designs, successfully completing mock-ups before the real deal. The mock-ups allowed us to practice our techniques for creating the pieces and to figure out how they fit together. 

Two groups decided to take on the first chair, known as “Stool 60,” originally designed by Alvar Aalto. What makes this chair so unique is how the stool legs are crafted, using steam to bend the wooden legs to the perfect angle. The second chair, the “Standard Chair,” was designed by Jean Prouvé. On the way to the finished chair, the team successfully completed a mock-up and test fit their mortise and tenon joints. The third chair, appropriately named “Zig Zag Chair,” was designed by Gerrit Rietveld. The team working on this chair faced a few battles: the angles are challengingly sharp and require precision when being cut. That team also worked hard on the dove tail joints to get them perfectly placed. The final chair, by Lina Bo Bardi, is famous for its dynamic folding ability, making it flat for storage. After creating two mock-ups, the team set to work on the final product. 

As the semester came to a close, we were able to have each of the chairs ready for Pig Roast. Producing our high-quality chairs included many missteps and a lot of practice. We learned with each mistake, discovering better ways to cut pieces, use glue jigs, and find correct angles. We all had our own hiccups with our chairs and challenges in their assemblies, but we were all successful in the end. Our experience in Woodshop this semester allowed us to take home an expanded and deeper knowledge and appreciation of woodworking, greater problem-solving abilities, and a brand new chair!

History: Beautiful Houses and New Heights

The last few weeks with Dick Hudgens gave us some of the most spectacular houses we’d seen yet! Starting with The Oaks, Ian welcomed us into his ornately decorated home, a beautiful Federalist-style house located in Greensboro. The period-accurate furniture and vast collection of art added much life and color into the house. Ian surprised Dick with a birthday celebration, and we sang Happy Birthday and ate cake in his beautiful dining room. 

The following week, we traveled to Thornhill, and the house we saw blew us away! The pristine Greek Revival house overlooks rolling green fields at the most beautiful vantage point we had seen yet. The inside of the house was outfitted with much of the furniture original to the house, a result of it being owned by the same family as the original builders. The house has a few additions to the back, which were masterfully done and honors the design of the rest of the house. After touring from attic to basement to the family cemetery, we hopped in the truck and got a special tour of the fire tower. Ten stories off the ground, the tower offered us a bird’s eye view of the entire property and the surrounding forests, houses, and fields.

The next house that we visited was a short drive down the road to Uniontown and is owned by a member of Rural Studio staff, Dudley Long. Upon driving in, we were instantly welcomed by Dudley’s four dogs and the beautiful facade of her house. The design is unique: the cream plaster columns along the front and side of the house and the floating front porch are unlike anything else we have seen at our other stops. Before Dudley, the house belonged to her grandmother; it has always belonged to her family. After our tour, we sketched two elevations of the house, practicing our ability to capture detail and scale in a short period of time. 

Our final tour with Dick Hudgens took us all over Selma, Alabama. We met at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which we walked across, and learned about Selma’s importance in the Civil Rights Movement. Next, Dick led us to the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church just a few blocks away. The church was the starting place for the famous march from Selma to Montgomery led by Martin Luther King Jr. Dick Hudgens is currently leading its renovation, so we got an inside look! Our next stop was an amazing surprise: a visit to Charlie “Tin Man” Lucas’s studio! We received a warm welcome from Charlie, a Selma local. He led us through his workshop/gallery of creations, explaining the ideation behind his pieces, and giving us amazing life advice in between. His work is mainly rearranging recycled mundane materials to make inspired, playful works of art. Finally, we got to see Dick Hudgens’s own house, which hosts his antiques and his architecture studio. Dick showed us the highlights of his collection and taught us the history of the house. The class concluded with a dinner at a local restaurant, Tally-Ho, where we ate ten baskets of bread and recounted our favorite moments from this special seminar class.

Student Life: We had a Field Day

We got to meet a whole bunch of new faces a few weeks ago with the 1st-year architecture students coming for their annual visit. They set up camp on Morrisette Campus, bringing their own tents and hammocks. We gave them a warm, West Alabama welcome and hosted a bonfire (complete with s’mores) to kick off their visit. The following morning, we all met at the Fabrication Pavilion. Earlier, each visiting student had been assigned a unique food, and the students were grouped according to similarities in their dishes. They’d been tasked with designing a table that represented the foods within their group, and we helped them through the building process. To start the second day, they presented their table plans, and we showed them the best tools to use to build the table by the end of the day. With lots of teamwork and communication, each table came together perfectly! The 1st-years presented their tables to the Rural Studio team and discussed how each group went about the building process, sharing knowledge that they’ll retain and apply to future projects! 

The Students of Rural Studio, our student organization, hosted a weekend field day for a little friendly competition between the students. It was a nice change of pace from studio, as well as a chance to trade out tools for a little friendly competition. The events brought a mix of teamwork and speed, with group games that kept everyone moving and laughing. There may not have been any gold medals, but there were some winning moments and a few unexpected MVPs. All in all, it was a well-played weekend and a great reminder to enjoy those final weeks we had together as a Rural Studio team.

Pig Roast!

Our work on site has concluded, we have finished building our chairs and have put the final touches on our watercolor projects. Now, the only thing left for us to do is to celebrate all of the good work that we have accomplished! Pig Roast, our end-of-the-year bash hosted at Rural Studio, is an annual celebration to display student work and learn about all the work done throughout the year. 

We were so honored to have guests from all around Alabama and the world come to celebrate with us. Families of students, practicing architects, alumni, and locals all traveled to see our accomplishments and to hear how our projects have unfolded this year. Friday kicked off the two-day celebration with the CLT Core House Opening. We watched a finished project be unveiled for a member of the community–a  heartwarming and electric moment.

We caravanned into Greensboro, where dinner was served at the Horseshoe Farm Courtyard (a previous Rural Studio project). Shoutout to Mo Kitchen at The Stable for a delicious dinner and Chef Amanda Pinkstaff for the wonderful desserts! To end the night, a few Rural Studio alumni shared their own recent work and experiences, which was encouraging and thought provoking. Despite the occasional rain shower, day one of Pig Roast went very well! 

Saturday was the main event, the day we had all been anticipating! By 8 a.m., a number of visitors had gathered on the Great Hall at Morrisette. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast (shoutout Chef Amanda and Ann) to fuel our morning project stops. After touring the projects of the “leftovers” (Studio students who have graduated), we presented our work from our History and Woodshop classes. Steve Long and Dick Hudgens both spoke on the nature of their respective classes, their curriculum, and the rigor required to do well in them. We displayed our final watercolor painting and process work for history. For Woodshop class, we presented our final chairs and some of the jigs that we used in their fabrication.

After a delicious lunch, we headed to Mark’s Home. Our presentation team set up on Mark’s new front porch as the crowd of family, friends, and visitors circled around. The presentation team walked everyone through the project, from the commencement of its design in 2024 to our semester’s share of the work. Our instructors, Emily McGlohn and Lauren Lovell, spoke about the work that had been accomplished in our semester and the ones before us. Then, Mark himself spoke, offering inspiring words to our group of friends and visitors. 

On behalf of the 3rd-year students, we would like to thank everyone who came out to participate and to show their support during Pig Roast. Our gratitude goes to families and friends who drove out for our celebration, to alumni and other architects who came to view the work, and to the donors and locals who make everything we do possible. We would also like to thank our staff at Rural Studio for the best semester. The community and positivity that is fostered between staff and students at Rural Studio is unlike anything else. We always felt encouraged to overcome challenges and to push ourselves, to set a standard for our own work and craftsmanship. We learned so much this semester through the teachings of our professors. We were well taken care of by the staff at Morrisette and the people in and around Hale County. We are so grateful for this experience, and we will carry it into the next chapters of our lives in and well beyond our return to our homes for the summer. So long!

Xoxo, The Spring 2026 3rd-year team