Welcome to the inaugural blog post for the First Congregational Church Hall team! We’ve been hard at work both in the studio and building on the Fabrication Pavilion, and we are excited to show you what we’ve developed so far for the historical church in Marion, Alabama, a congregation that dates to 1869.
The two new 5th-year projects are a church hall in Marion and a home for a tornado survivor in Newbern. When we were presented with these two projects, it was made clear that both project assemblies should use donated, on-hand timber materials, and should be insulated continuously on the exterior of the building. We were also challenged to build two new 3rd-year Timber Insulation Pods that will act as mock-ups, giving us the opportunity to test the palette of materials and construction for the house and the church hall.
The First Congregational Church of Marion was originally constructed in 1871 by freed slaves as well as representatives from the American Missionary Association. Civil rights leader and former United Nations Ambassador for the United States Andrew Young first served as a pastor for the First Congregational Church of Marion. The church was second to the construction of the Lincoln Normal School, completed in 1869, as a space to educate teachers and freedmen after the Civil War. The Lincoln Normal School was built next to the First Congregational Church of Marion but burned down in 1887. Coretta Scott King attended the second Lincoln Normal School a street south of the church.
Our goal, a century and a half later, is to provide the First Congregational Church of Marion an adjacent structure and improved landscape to revitalize the congregation and engage the community. The project scope is composed of a roughly 1,200-square-foot, multi-use enclosed structure as well as a landscaped exterior space between the new structure and existing historical church. Now that we understand the project scope, without further ado, meet the team!
From left to right, we have Tanner Wallace (from Birmingham, AL), McAllister Tucker (from Fairfax, VA), Lawson Faulk (from Dothan, AL), and Emma Johnson (from Birmingham, AL).
After designing teams, we hit the ground running! The full Halloween Reviews presentation gave us much to prepare. We put pencil to paper on iterating our first major design decisions. How should the building be oriented? Where does the building sit relative to the historical church? But, as you might know, iterating is not the only element of Halloween Reviews. Speaking of which, we heard there was a UFO sighting, right here in Hale County. We also heard the beings in this UFO were here to visit Rural Studio! Say hello to our Halloween Reviews visitors…from outer space!
Following Halloween Reviews, we implemented as much advice from our encouraging reviewers as possible. Our scope widened as we began digging deeper into both the interior and exterior design. We explored existing courtyards and landscapes local to Hale and Perry Counties to understand local precedents. Alongside sketching for the First Congregational Church Hall, we’ve had to shift our attention as a group of eight to construction of the Timber Insulation Pods. We’ve made significant progress on cutting and tapering the glue-laminated columns and bents this past week. Next up for the Timber Insulation Pods is getting into that lap-splice cut!
We’ve received significant help from our notable guest reviewers with the beginning stages of our project! Thanks to Roy Decker with Duvall Decker Architects; Amanda Loper and Cameron Acheson with David Baker Architects; Thomas Paterson with Lux Populi; Mary Margret Jones with Hargreaves Jones Landscape Architecture; Billie Tsien with Studio Tsien; and esteemed consultant Elise Jaffe for sharing their insights on our initial designs. We still have much to learn, and we hope you will stay tuned to see how we progress with both the living Timber Insulation Pods and the First Congregational Church Hall!
