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Building Anew: A Rehabilitation and Rebuilding Initiative in Rural North Carolina

Marshall, North Carolina

In 2022, Community Housing Coalition of Madison County (CHCMC) secured funding to replace four substandard houses in their service area. CHCMC has historically focused on the repair and rehabilitation of existing homes in their service area but recognized the opportunity to invest funding more sustainably through replacement housing. For the first of these projects, CHCMC chose to use a Rural Studio design to work within the challenging site, which has both a restricted buildable area and a significant grade change. After a deed restriction in contract documentation proved incompatible with the HUD funding for the project, CHCMC reallocated funding from private foundations to support the construction of this house.

Replacement home on the left and existing home on the right (red roof)

The Sylvia’s House prototype was well suited for the narrow and steeply sloped rural site where an existing home—which remained in place during construction—and septic lines limited buildable area. The new home overlooks a stream across the road and nestles into a hillside while maintaining driveway access to the existing home. The selection of finishes favored durable and low-maintenance materials. Access and space planning considered the future mobility needs of the client: in addition to the ramp at the front porch, grading at the rear porch will allow a zero-step entry. Inside a roll-in shower will accommodate aging-in-place. Where possible, Rural Studio Front Porch Initiative team incorporated equipment and appliances from the client’s existing home to reduce construction costs.

Construction began in mid-February of 2023 with CHCMC serving as the general contractor with some subcontractor labor and on August 2, 2023, CHCMC had an open house for all the partners involved to see the home as it nears completion. This first ground-up build will serve as a demonstration home for the organization to expand and provide homes that are affordable, high-performing, and efficiently designed to accommodate the needs of their clients.

Performance

In addition to ENERGY STAR 3.1, the Front Porch Initiative team elected to pursue a North Carolina state standard: Green Built Homes. This point-based standard resembles LEED for Homes, but with less intensive documentation requirements. The organization’s experience in weatherization has proved valuable in design discussions of air tightness and insulation, and this new construction project has served as a learning opportunity for the construction team, informing their understanding of beyond-code construction. We want to give a special shout out to Hunter Dendy of Eco-Sense in Asheville, NC. Hunter graciously donated his consulting services AND the cost of HERS and ENERGY STAR certifications for the new home.

Long-term Affordability

As the first new construction project for an organization accustomed to housing repair work, this project has provided valuable learning for CHCMC. Project development has highlighted the need for establishing clear expectations and communication with the client and for understanding the limitations of funding sources. For example, CHCMC learned that HUD funding precludes a deed restriction providing right of first refusal for the organization; furthermore, they recognize that some clients prefer to maintain the option of transferring a home to a relative or heir at default, potentially limiting the number of interested clients.

We are continuing our collaboration with CHCMC on future projects in continuing increasing their capacity to deliver replacement homes in the community. 

Press Articles:

Asheville Citizen Times: “Madison housing organization breaks ground on replacement home program: ‘There’s hope again’” by Johnny Casey

A West Alabama Welcome

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

The 3rd-year fall semester has 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.

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 amongst their friends at their home in Hale. 

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 houses 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.

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 1830’s which has been preserved for visitors. The class toured the house and drew the ground floor plan along with a front elevation.

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. 

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!

A Toast for Bathhouse Post-Roast!

Hello and welcome back to the Rural Studio Bathhouse blog!

We have been hard at work moving the project forward. Sorry it has been a while since we spoke, but we are so excited to provide a much-anticipated update on the progress of our project. Last time we provided an update, we were busy preparing for Pig Roast.

Students stand to present team powerpoint
The team prepared to present at Pig Roast!

The team worked hard and pulled together to produce drawings, a taped-out floorplan, and a dry-stacked mock-up of our outdoor shower for Pig Roast! The day was full of presentations and celebrations of the work done by all teams, as well as music and fun with our families and friends.

A week after Pig Roast, our team made our way to Auburn for a huge milestone in our life—We Graduated! (believe it or not)

After several weeks of celebrations, the team returned to Hale County. To keep the drum beat and momentum going into the summer, we have recently welcomed several visitors back into the fold. 

Kiel Moe and Joe Burns returned to continue helping the team with the structure and better focus the overall design. After discussion with Kiel and Joe, the team has decided to simplify our natural lighting strategy. 

Students and visitors stand in forest, discussing site
Kiel and Joe with the team on site

We are doing this by introducing ambient light into the existing breathing wall pods from clerestories in the north and south walls. In doing so, we are taking advantage of the layered system of construction by just removing layers of the walls to introduce natural lighting. In the toilet and shower pods, we will use large skylights to create a more direct connection to the sky and trees above. 

More recently, Dan Wheeler returned to help with detailing and working through the design of the windows and skylights.

Finally, Jake Labarre returned to help us in preparation for our final executive review. He drew through 1:1 details with us and helped us begin to prepare a drawing set in preparation for construction.

We had our final executive review and are very excited to push hard towards construction! The team is working to produce construction drawings for our outdoor shower, which will serve as a test of most of the details in our project. The team will test the foundations and pouring a slab, stacking the walls and threading the rods through the walls, and attaching the roof structure to the walls. In the end, the outdoor shower will provide the team valuable knowledge for the construction of the rest of the project, as well as a testing ground for fixtures and other finishes that may be considered for the whole building. The team plans to be in the ground for the outdoor shower in the next few weeks. 

Thank you so much for reading along and we look forward to providing another exciting update very soon!

students pose on couch

-Rural Studio Bathhouse Team

Carla, Ambar, Ashley, and Logan 

In the Walls & On the Roof!

A perspective view of the back of the house shows a row of scaffolding at the base of the roof and rectangles of insulation stacked halfway up the roof deck.

A new year and a reinvigorated energy for the Patriece’s Home team! In 2023, the home will all come together! The team was so eager to get back to work, they settled back into Hale County weeks before the semester started.

Plus, their insulation arrived. Thanks to a generous donation from Rockwool, Patriece’s Home, Rosie’s Home, and the C.H.O.I.C.E House will be filled with Rockwool fire and sound-proof insulation. These products are made from basalt rocks that have been melted down and whipped like cotton candy, and provide a more healthful insulation alternative. 

Because the trusses on Patreice’s Home are designed for 5 1/2” of spray foam insulation, the team developed a strategy to use 4 inches of Rockwool Comfortboard 110 on the exterior of the roof deck and Comfortbatt on the interior of the roof deck to achieve the necessary insulation R value. They also drilled holes in the roof purlins of the six-foot gap between the trusses so that vapor can diffuse across the underside of the roof deck through the port in the ridge. Thank you, Rural Studio 5th-,years for helping install interior insulation! The team edited the eave and rake details for this change and once the comfort board was stacked on the roof, they covered it in a waterproof plastic, purlins to screw the roof metal into and sandwiched all the layers together with 7” screw into the attic trusses! 

After the insulation was secure, the team finished placing the corrugated ash grey roof metal on the house in one afternoon! The first finish layer of the home is complete! 

Before they finish the other side of the roof, the team is going to duct three rooms upstairs to whirly bird vents on the roof to help ventilate the home in the hot Alabama summers. The students will have to drill though all layers of the roof sandwich and built hatches to the ducts, which can be closed in the winter and opened when it heats up. Team member Daniel built a mockup of the hatches and the team had another detail design meeting with their consultant Dan Wheeler!

Adam and Laurel also ran around the house installing an exterior hose bib, the hot water heater, and the shower controls to finally finish the plumbing. They installed two ERVs—one for each unit in the dividable home—to circulate fresh air and installed ducts the bathroom fans and kitchen range hood They cut the ZIP below the tall windows to secure the home’s through-wall unit sleeves.

Meanwhile, Lauren and Daniel have been tangled in the wires! Boxes were placed, holes drilled, and wire pulled to electrify the whole home. The electrical system is designed on two breaker boxes; when the home is devised into two units, the second unit can be hooked up to a second preinstalled meter box. These little details are part of the team’s adaptable design to allow the home to flex with as little effort as possible. Rural Studio’s own Mason Hinton helped them design and test the circuits and hook them up to the breakers and meter box outside. The team is also installing conduit to a low voltage box inside, so if the homeowner decides to change their internet or cable television service provider, the new cables can easily be routed into the home. 

With the last of the roof metal coming soon and final checks on the guts of house’s walls being done, we’re all ready to see this space filled with insulation and transformed by drywall! Read Patriece’s Home’s blog next time to see their spring progress in Greensboro!

Pomp and Staircumstance

Now that the Patriece’s Home team has a chance to catch their breath, let us tell you about the exciting last few weeks! Pigs have been roasted, mock-ups have gone up, executives have reviewed, so get ready, because we’ve got a full story!

A sketched perspective sits behind a tree on Patriece's site

Site Design Time! The students began investigating details of the site, including the existing trailer, driveway, and a beautiful, healthy Water Oak tree. The team met with David Hill (professor and graduate chair of Auburn University School of Landscape Architecture) to get some advice on how to draw and diagram zones of different uses on the site, such as play areas and parking. He advised the group to use simple but powerful landscaping tools, like subtle berms and trees that will last and grow over the home’s long lifetime.

The team did a charrette to learn how programmatic zones and natural elements could inform where the house sits, instead of the other way around!

The team also began making mock-ups of many of their home’s unique details!

At the SAME time, the student team was preparing for the Studio’s annual Pig Roast weekend. The students mocked-up their most recent landscape plan on the site and created a scrolled slideshow to present their design of an adaptable two story home to the Studio’s families, friends, and alumni.

And at the same time (are you sensing a theme here?), the Patriece’s Home team prepared for the Executive Review 2.0! The guest reviewers suggested the team use an elevated slab to mitigate their site’s slope, order materials and windows, and get in the ground as soon as possible. YAY!

After Pig Roast and the Executive Reviews, the team rushed over to Auburn to graduate! They’ve worked hard on their research the last two semesters, but when they come back to Hale County next week, as leftovers, the real design-build work begins!

four students stand in the auburn football field, smiling in graduation caps and gowns