Greetings from the Dining House team! When we last caught up in February, the team made big decisions about the foundation, structure, and floor plan layout. Since then, we concluded weeks jam-packed with designing landscaping, master planning, accessibility, and building code with the first round Executive Reviews. (Executive Review is when the 5th-year students present their work to the school faculty, admin, and leadership for evaluation. This review determines whether the project is in the appropriate place in development and the Studio has the resources to support the project.) Additionally, we milled more logs (50 out of 70 so far!) reveal our gradual progress.  

Our big design decisions include where to place the Dining House on the site, how much insulation to use for thermal comfort, and what materials to use for the structure and finishes. 

The landscape is integral to the master planning of the north side of Morrisette Campus, stitching the Dining House into a rich architectural landscape. Based on input from landscape architects David Hill and Mary Margaret Jones, we intend to reintroduce deciduous trees in the Loblolly pine grove while also creating an allée of trees (a tree-lined path) stretching from the forest, going past the front of the Dining House, and reaching all the way to the Great Hall lawn. This big move will provide a privacy screen and denote a transition when entering the campus residential zone. We are also shaping an outdoor room between the Dining House and Bathhouse, where activities inside the Dining House can spill out onto the lawn. This zone will see a “re-wilding” effort to increase a diverse range of trees and shrubs. Amongst this colorful regrowth, we will set a small outdoor patio right outside the Dining House for a place to hang out all months of the year.

Our team compiled a of these design decisions to show our Rural Studio client group and the head of Auburn University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture. We got some excellent feedback that is pushing us to consider the thermal comfort of an unconditioned building. As a result, we’re running with a new driving idea of a “hunker-down” space within a pavilion-like structure, which is encouraging us to focus in on layout and massing, or arrangement, shape, and size of the structure. 

Marlon Blackwell arrived as we were rethinking our floor plan. We received much-needed clarity. First, we embraced the idea of an operable building, discussing what sliding/pivoting pieces that were within our wheelhouse could create a pavilion effect. The Dining House can use passive conditioning with sliding barn doors on the west and operable panels in an eastern dormer. With a refined elevation and cleaner diagram of the building, we were ready to tackle the ever-present question of, “How is this thing going to stand?” 

From large spans to an excess of cantilevers, we needed to answer some major structural questions. Engineer Joe Burns helped us target our most challenging structural moments and pointed to ways that some of our materials could be best used. Our most up-to-date floor plan layout has a structural grid logic; in the process of planning, we’re creating diagonal sheer walls with our white oak and finding the best use of our nano CLT, as well as supporting spans and overhangs.

This returns us to the specific questions of, “What does this look like for a 3rd-year using the space? How will students be engaging with the Dining House during mealtimes and their downtime?” Kim Clements and Joe Schnieder provided excellent insight on the intricacies of kitchen design and development. We considered kitchen layouts, storage placement, and sequence of use, coming up with design strategies around thickened walls, window placement, and arrangement of doors into the kitchen. 

With so much recent change and shaping, the Dining House is nearing an exciting level of resolution. We have just a few remaining schematic design questions around circulation, site placement, and site drainage. As we look forward to Pig Roast and the final Executive Review, the team will be working on answering these questions as well as on getting a clear schedule for a mockup and starting earth work.  One thing remains clear: we want to create a wonderful space for the 3rd-years. And we are closer to that goal than ever before.