postframehome

The Spring semester is complete! During their last few weeks in Newbern, the 3rd-year class completed projects for the Woodshop class, visited the final house for History class, worked on the foundations and walls of Rosie’s Home, and prepared for the Pig Roast presentations. Scroll down to see these final products and more!

Finishing Up the Chairs

Each of the teams spent time on their chair’s assembly and sanding, all complete with finishing oils to make them really shine. In the final review, we discussed what we liked about our chair, what could be improved, and what we learned over the course of the semester.

Forkland, AL

Our final fieldtrip let us to Thornhill mansion in Forkland, Alabama. The amazing views, tasteful modern additions, and lovely adjacent schoolhouse made for a great afternoon with an abundance of learning.

The Foundation of Our Learning

With gravel in place, we began the next step of preparing for the foundation by digging the slab’s turndowns and constructing the formwork. Next, we backfilled the formwork using the dirt from the turndowns and installed the rebar and wire mesh.

Turndowns strengthen the edge of the slab

During our final week of construction, we poured the foundation of Rosie’s Home! After two concrete trucks, a lot of hand-smoothing, and a day to cure, we were able to stand on the foundation, remove the formwork, and begin the process of framing the walls. Using our detailed framing plans, we constructed and leveled the North, East, and South walls of the home. In the Fall, the upcoming 3rd-year class will finish the Western wall’s framing and construct the exterior envelope before moving on to the interior.

While we waited for the concrete to set, we spent the afternoon building a new house for Rosie’s dog, Bo, whose house was beginning to fail. We were able to carry it over to the backyard for Bo by the end of the day, just in time, since a big storm blew in shortly after.

I love Rural! Pig Roast 2022!

The semester ended with a bang at the annual Pig Roast festivities. We enjoyed two days of touring current projects and celebrating the completion of several projects. The weekend ended with a graduation ceremony for the 5th-year students and celebration of our community partners.

First, we showed off a gallery of our projects for Woodshop, History, and Studio.

Next, we drove over to site. After some kind words from Rosie and Frankie, we presented our progress on Rosie’s Home to our visitors. The benefits of our post-frame construction were clearly shown when a storm hit suddenly. Thankfully, with our pre-constructed roof, we were able to continue the presentation and celebration as planned.

Looking back on our semester here at Rural Studio, we have come so far since January. We will all miss Newbern dearly, but our team is very excited to see the next semester of students develop the project even further. We can’t wait to return to see Rosie and Frankie enjoying their new home.

Check back here in August to get to know the folks working on Phase 3 of Rosie’s Home!

This Spring has been busy for our 3rd-year team! Scroll down to see what we’ve been up to with Rosie’s Home, Woodshop, and History!

Studio

First off, our team has begun our study of Rosie’s current home with interviews and a series of empathetic drawings that we will continue to work on throughout the semester. Each of us has chosen an element of the home to study that will help us to make informed choices about the design of the new home.

We are using our findings from these drawings to begin the process of adapting the floor plan of 20K Turner’s Home to Rosie’s needs.

As we continue to create iterations of these plans, the team has also begun our foray into creating full-scale wall section details.

Construction Progress!

Recently, construction began on our post-frame structure. Our team helped bolt together the truss system while the sub-contractors implanted the posts and lifted the trusses into place. Afterwards, they attached the purlins to the truss system in preparation for the metal roofing to come.

My First Woodshop

For our first adventure in carpentry, each member of our team was tasked with designing and making a cutting board from a set amount of wood. In the span of a couple weeks, we learned a lot about woodworking, sanding, and staining, and ended up with a striking variety of cutting boards.

Our next goal is to begin the process of testing ways to build our chair precedents. For the next few weeks, we’ll be testing out different methods for the construction of their components.

History and Watercolor

We have visited several historic homes in the past month, such as the (pictured below) Carlisle Hall, Bluff Hall, Lyon Hall, and Tasso House. It is so interesting to learn about the details of these buildings and the reasoning behind their construction, along with developing our sketching skills on site.