Eight fresh faces rolled into Hale County this August, ready to trade Toomer’s Corner for pasture-lined roads. We wasted no time diving into the Rural Studio rhythm. Within days, we were deep in research, drawings, workshops, mock-ups, and then even more drawings.

As a full team of eight, we began designing and constructing two small living pods on the Rural Studio campus: dorms that will soon house two 3rd-year students each. These pods act as our full-scale mock-ups for the larger thesis projects to come. 

We were granted a palette of mass-timber materials: glulam beams, cross-laminated timber panels, tongue-and-groove decking, and wood fiber insulation. Because these materials function beautifully as both structure and interior finish, they pushed us toward an exciting conclusion: the insulation shouldn’t hide inside the wall cavity, it should live entirely on the exterior of the structure! The pods became our testing ground for how that system performs, and everything we learned from them is now informing the two larger thesis projects.

Then came the hardest and most memorable moment so far: forming two final teams to carry our research into real, buildable projects. What started as a regular afternoon meeting turned into a six-hour marathon of conversation, reflection, a few tears, lots of laughter, and a well-timed hot chocolate break. By 1 a.m., two teams of four finally emerged.

So, without further ado, meet the new house team. The crew behind Rural Studio’s next residential CLT house: Kati Warner from Huntsville, Alabama; Mac Harlow from Atlanta, Georgia; Julia Van Pelt from Columbus, Georgia; and Caitlin Ranheim from Brooklyn, New York .

This new house project will be a two-story, three-bedroom, two-bathroom home. But it’s also a deep dive into the possibilities of cross-laminated timber (CLT) at a residential scale. CLT is strong, precise, and beautiful, but it’s not often used for single-family homes. We’re hoping to change that industry standard. By experimenting with a small-scale modular panel system, we aim to make CLT more replicable, efficient, and responsive for the kinds of houses Rural Studio is known for.

Once the team officially came together, we had exactly one week to pull together a full presentation and costumes for the infamous Rural Studio Halloween Review. No pressure, right? We showed up as giant Kit-Kat bars, all connected inside one oversized wrapper, the wafers symbolizing the different layers of wood they are working with… haha get it? 

After the review, the idea of a manageable and thin “residential CLT” finally started to click. From there, the team jumped into workshops with consultants from David Baker Architects, got deep into lighting with Thomas Paterson from Lux Populi, and collected feedback on every thoughtful move in their design process. The team also was helped by visiting consultants: Mary Margaret Jones, Billie Tsien, and Elise Jaffe. And in all the in-between moments, they kept grinding design iterations. 

Stay tuned as our team continues designing, detailing, and ultimately building this next Rural Studio prototype. The work is just beginning, but the excitement is already through the roof (and soon enough, maybe the CLT panels will be too).