#newbernAL

Week 4: When Hale Froze Over

Hello Again from the 3rd-Year students at Rural Studio!

This year, instead of a Spring Break, Auburn University included “Wellness Days” over the course of the semester. These Wellness Days give students a mental break in the middle of the week. Coincidentally, this weeks’ Wellness Day number brought snow! Although it was only a dusting, the students were able to bear the frigid temperatures to enjoy the rarity of deep south snow. Enjoy these pictures from around Newbern!

Ophelia’s Home

After an enjoyed Wellness Day, the 3rd-Year students kicked it into high gear on site. The interiors team stud framed and prepped most of the interior walls.

Picture showing the interior progress of Ophelia's home
The Interior Walls Framed and in Place

The only thing left to frame is the soffit, which will divide the public and private spaces within the home. The soffit is basically an extended door header. It will span the length of the house, creating enough separation in the nook from the living space, while also separating the utility room from the entry.

History Class

Due to rainy weather, the 3rd-Year students worked in-house on a design problem for history class. These problems encourage critical thinking and designing in a way that matches the era of the structures the class regularly tours. Recently, the students were tasked with illustrating the process of constructing a homestead.

Firstly, they imagined picking a site. This took into consideration water sources, sun, prevailing winds, available building materials, and site conditions that will help keep the home warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Next, plans, sections, and perspectives were composed in a storyboard format to tell the story of an imagined family and their homestead. We were limited to the tools and construction techniques that were used through 1810 to 1819.

Shop Class

The 3rd-Years are in the beginning stages of designing all of the millwork for Ophelia’s home. They researched and studied the designs from previous semesters. This provided a great starting point, but they have added accessibility to the cabinet design. The 3rd-Years have been challenged to think critically about the design so far and also to place household objects in the cabinets to truly understand the sizes and placement.

Third-Year Sign-off

Thanks again for reading Ophelia’s Home Project team blog! We hope you enjoy the update. Keep it real and stay healthy.

-Wendy, Sadie, Logan, Drew Haley, Austin, James, Juyeon, Ashley, and Kirby

Stacks on Stacks on Stacks… of Drawings

Let’s charrette!

In order to start thinking about each of the product line homes on Ophelia’s site, the 3rd-year studio has done hundreds (!) of drawings. They started with a charrette exercise to quickly sketch their ideas on paper and compile an initial understanding of the 20K Project, constraints, and opportunities.  

Then, they split up into teams of 4 or 5 and each team was assigned a different product line house. Their assignment was to test the houses’ compatibility with the site and the “fit and feel” of the interior relative to their clients needs.

The main challenge of this year’s house was figuring out how to accommodate a guest that might stay for an extended period. The group used many different types of drawings to help them better understand the opportunities for growth within the house, specifically different plans options of each house along with vignettes showing different ways the client might use the space if not for an extra bed. They also worked out how the foundation will be built and function in each product line home by using sectional drawings.

In addition to the more technical drawings, the 3rd-years also sketched diagrams and perspectives, crafted a site model with the three standard product line homes, and made porch detail models for their specific proposals.

They repeated this process of drawing and presenting until the Studio and instructors felt they could comfortably and unanimously eliminate one of the proposals from the running because it would not be right for their client.

Through this process, the 3rd-years have since eliminated one home and will continue to explore and develop their ideas for the other two product line homes and how they will best work for their project. Stay tuned to see what product line home this studio will build for Ophelia!

Oh yeah, and every Wednesday is “haiku Wednesday” …