Greetings from the Dining House team! Let’s catch you up on our progress. Fall semester Soup Roast gave way to the holidays, so the team had time to reflect on progress and return refreshed for 2025. Since January, the design conversation has been on spatial proportions, timber roof structure, program intent, passive ventilation, and form + volume. From campus parking schemes to window details, the team continues striving to clarify the project’s structure, design ethos, and technical aesthetics.
Esteemed visiting consultants have invigorated our project, sharing their time and expertise. In January, Dan Wheeler and Joe Burns helped clarify project intent, the size and scale of the building, and its relationship to neighboring buildings. They also helped us devise the image of all elevations, both inside and out. Ultimately, the team came away with a simple, effective floor plan. In February, Andrew Burman visited. He helped the team explore the volume and the sequence of entry; we also expanded upon the social impacts of the spaces the project could create. Ted Flato arrived just in time for a discussion on roof lines, window collaging, and passive ventilation systems. Additionally, meetings with the Rural Studio client team have aided in finalizing site planning and suggestions for floor plan improvement.
Our project method attempts to reduce material consumption through an ethos of “raw, reuse, and reimagine.” Part of our process has been to rediscover leftover, discarded, and forgotten material in six of Rural Studio’s store barns, including the Thesis Barn and the Brick Barn. These materials are reimagined as an integrated whole. A strong timber frame supports the building, constructed of student-milled raw lumber from Rural Studio’s own backyard. The skin of the building “hangs” outboard of this sturdy skeleton, forming a creatively collaged assembly of roof tile and sheet metal, windows and doors, kitchen tile, and flooring.
All key materials are readily available in Rural Studio’s stock. Elements are stitched together through careful planning and material study. Above all, a hands-on approach is favored. By visiting the barns, laying out material, holding it, measuring it, and understanding it, we hope to take advantage of what Rural Studio already has, rather than order all-new from manufacturers.
Over the past few weeks, we have landed on a few design decisions: a footing and block wall foundation will wrap the building, preventing the intrusion of rodents and moisture underneath the kitchen. The interior wall-to-wall is 22′ wide, with spans supported by a concrete pier down the middle.
The north and south sides of the Dining House floor plan flank a square-like dining area and kitchen. The north side holds a breakfast nook and a utility closet. The south side has an entry vestibule and a pantry with refrigerators. A long bar of kitchen counter holds two ranges and two sinks. A kitchen island divides the dining and cooking/prep space. The island is a social hub, incorporating the cubbies.
The building will take the form of a lean-to, following a 2/3: 1/3 proportion along the long length of the building. 1/3 will house the kitchen on the east, which will act as a sturdy shear structure. The west 2/3 will house the kitchen island and dining space, with an 8′ deep porch extending out towards the Bathhouse. The highest point of the roof ridge is 19′. A clerestory will allow hot air to rise and expel while letting light in from the east. North to south, the square-ish proportion of the dining and kitchen will be flanked by slim 6′ wide rooms, housing a breakfast nook and utility closet on the north, with a vestibule and pantry on the south.
A few of our important systems include a Mondrian-like collage of windows, made up of found goods, in the dining area and faces west, towards a covered 8′ deep porch. Two roof systems divide the building, with rediscovered metal covering 2/3 of the dining and porch, and the front 1/3 covered in a vintage blue ceramic tile, which also wraps the front facade. The structure is made of milled 6×6 timbers, further milled down to 2x6s when needed for rafters, floor joists, or framing members. These systems are beginning to be large parts of the character of the building. We hope to provide a sturdy frame and allow for the constraint of reused materials to characterize many beautiful moments of the project.
To move the project forward, we will continue to lay out roofing material, doors, and windows to assess quality and usability. While remembering to capture a goofy photo every once in a while too. Stay tuned!
