Raise the roof! The C.H.O.I.C.E. House is finally dried in. After several days of dodging rain, pollen, and morning dew, the team wrapped up our roof assembly with 64 panels of charcoal gray metal. Of course, we couldn’t have done it without 5th-years Meagan and Ashley, John Marusich, and our resident roof cognoscente, Andrew Freear.
With the installation of the ridge vent and bathroom vent done, our heavy hat is officially complete, meaning we can turn our attention inward and onward to preparing for drywall installation.
The biggest pre-drywall tasks are plumbing and wiring, both of which are well underway. Plumbing involves running hot and cold lines to the showers and food prep sink, as well as installing vent pipes in those same spaces. We’ve also run lines to the washer and an outdoor spigot. The plumbing process is like a puzzle. When solved correctly, you get a hot shower and clean dishes! Wiring rough-in, on the other hand, is something akin to weaving al dente spaghetti through a popsicle stick loom. One bright yellow cable at a time, we’re connecting circuits of switches and receptacles and fixtures, around 40 in total. The results are shocking!
Once these larger tasks are complete, we’ll be able to finish pre-rocking, framing our interior soffits, installing our ducts, and tiling the showers. One might say we’re really “springing” forward. Until next time, when we’ll be sheet-rocking and rolling.
A new year and a reinvigorated energy for the Patriece’s Home team! In 2023, the home will all come together! The team was so eager to get back to work, they settled back into Hale County weeks before the semester started.
Plus, their insulation arrived. Thanks to a generous donation from Rockwool, Patriece’s Home, Rosie’s Home, and the C.H.O.I.C.E House will be filled with Rockwool fire and sound-proof insulation. These products are made from basalt rocks that have been melted down and whipped like cotton candy, and provide a more healthful insulation alternative.
Because the trusses on Patreice’s Home are designed for 5 1/2” of spray foam insulation, the team developed a strategy to use 4 inches of Rockwool Comfortboard 110 on the exterior of the roof deck and Comfortbatt on the interior of the roof deck to achieve the necessary insulation R value. They also drilled holes in the roof purlins of the six-foot gap between the trusses so that vapor can diffuse across the underside of the roof deck through the port in the ridge. Thank you, Rural Studio 5th-,years for helping install interior insulation! The team edited the eave and rake details for this change and once the comfort board was stacked on the roof, they covered it in a waterproof plastic, purlins to screw the roof metal into and sandwiched all the layers together with 7” screw into the attic trusses!
After the insulation was secure, the team finished placing the corrugated ash grey roof metal on the house in one afternoon! The first finish layer of the home is complete!
Before they finish the other side of the roof, the team is going to duct three rooms upstairs to whirly bird vents on the roof to help ventilate the home in the hot Alabama summers. The students will have to drill though all layers of the roof sandwich and built hatches to the ducts, which can be closed in the winter and opened when it heats up. Team member Daniel built a mockup of the hatches and the team had another detail design meeting with their consultant Dan Wheeler!
Adam and Laurel also ran around the house installing an exterior hose bib, the hot water heater, and the shower controls to finally finish the plumbing. They installed two ERVs—one for each unit in the dividable home—to circulate fresh air and installed ducts the bathroom fans and kitchen range hood They cut the ZIP below the tall windows to secure the home’s through-wall unit sleeves.
Meanwhile, Lauren and Daniel have been tangled in the wires! Boxes were placed, holes drilled, and wire pulled to electrify the whole home. The electrical system is designed on two breaker boxes; when the home is devised into two units, the second unit can be hooked up to a second preinstalled meter box. These little details are part of the team’s adaptable design to allow the home to flex with as little effort as possible. Rural Studio’s own Mason Hinton helped them design and test the circuits and hook them up to the breakers and meter box outside. The team is also installing conduit to a low voltage box inside, so if the homeowner decides to change their internet or cable television service provider, the new cables can easily be routed into the home.
With the last of the roof metal coming soon and final checks on the guts of house’s walls being done, we’re all ready to see this space filled with insulation and transformed by drywall! Read Patriece’s Home’s blog next time to see their spring progress in Greensboro!
It’s been a busy month for the 18×18 House! Design of the house is moving into a technical mix of details, framing, material choices, and structural design.
The team finally got to meet the FPI building partners from Nashville, TN, whose idea created the 18×18 project. Eddie Latimer, CEO of Affordable Housing Resources, and Barbara Harper from Honeybee Builders spent Valentine’s Day in Hale County with the Front Porch Initiative and students. The 18×18 House team presented their work to Eddie and Barbara and received feedback on expectations for the project. It was an exciting day for all of us!
The same week, engineer Joe Burns and architect Dan Wheeler came back to Newbern to help the teams move forward with structural and detail strategies. A first round of full-size details made it onto the wall for discussion, and the team explored structural possibilities for the house’s storage system.
New York architect Andrew Berman also came to work in Hale County this month. He pushed the 18×18 House team further into designing a loft for the house, and his visit left them ready to make that space bigger, better, and more usable. Now the team is exploring how to design a dormer to make an upper level for the house, which could be an extra bedroom, workspace, living area, playroom… the list of possibilities is growing!
And this month brought tool trailers into the mix! Keys were made, inventory was taken, and spirits are high as Executive Reviews (and construction!) get closer. Check in next month to see where the team is after their biggest review of the year!
The University of Virginia (UVA) and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation jointly bestow the esteemed Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal annually in three fields in which Jefferson “excelled and held in high regard”—one medal each in architecture, law, and citizen leadership—and in some years, in global innovation. This year, Wiatt Professor and Director of Auburn University Rural Studio Andrew Freear and the Studio itself have been selected for the honor in architecture. Other 2023 Medal recipients include Jason Rezaian for the Medal in Citizen Leadership and Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju for the Medal in Law.
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal is the highest external honor granted by the University of Virginia, which does not grant honorary degrees, and celebrates the recipients as exemplars in their endeavors. Architecture is the original Medal category and Mies Van der Rohe was the first recipient in 1966. Other past recipients in architecture include Alvar Aalto (1967), Robert Venturi (1983), and more recently Sir David Adjaye OBE (2018) and Kenneth Frampton (2022).
Lions Park Playscape
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation is an “independent, nonprofit organization that owns and operates his home, Monticello.” As a museum and historic site, Monticello keeps alive the accomplishments of Jefferson, the complex man who penned the Declaration of Independence, served as the third President of the United States, and founded the University of Virginia in 1819–but who was also a slave owner. Today, the Foundation works to recognize the valuable lessons of history: that we must wrestle with them, rather than ignore them, and that we must continue to work for a just future. Past Medal recipient Wendy Kopp (Teach for America, Teach for All) used the honor to publicly address the difficult “paradox” Jefferson presents as both an enslaver and an architect of our government and its ideals, and Senator John Lewis, 2015 recipient of the Citizen Leadership Medal, went on to point out that we have not yet arrived at that future when he encouraged award ceremony attendees to “keep your eyes on the prize.” Following Senator Lewis’ instruction to us all, we are compelled to use this recognition to highlight the persistent housing inequities still found in rural America, inequities that have arisen from the ongoing legacy of human enslavement.
Andrew Freear and Rural Studio will receive the 2023 Medal in Architecture at the annual Founder’s Day celebration, a joint UVA and Foundation event held on April 13, Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. Professor Freear captured the sentiment of all of Rural Studio when he learned of the honor: “It’s quite extraordinary that a modest undergraduate program in West Alabama can be mentioned alongside giants in our field such as Jane Jacobs, Glenn Murcutt, Billie Tsien, Tod Williams, and Frances Kéré. We are deeply humbled to have been selected for this distinction not just for the honor, but for the light that it shines on rural America and society’s role in ensuring equitable, dignified communities.” We couldn’t have said it better.
The 18×18 House team has hit the ground running this semester!
Soup Roast left this project at a turning point with details and built-in storage in mind. Now, the team is considering both construction logistics and how the project design can be used outside of Hale County. After the fall semester, the 18×18 House has two versions of its (dare we say…final?) plan. The two versions are the team’s new solution for “flippability.” This means the house can be built with a kitchen either upstairs or downstairs with minimal design changes made.
As the first visitors of 2023, Jim Stockard and Chris Herbert came all the way from Harvard University. Chris Herbert is Managing Director of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. James Stockard is a Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. They are housing and policy specialists and educators, so they helped the team understand the best ways to talk about the 18×18 House and its connection to housing as a social issue.
February began with a visit from architect Mike Newman and housing specialist Katrina Van Valkenburg, friends of the Studio who have been coming to Newbern for years. Mike and Katrina challenged the team to think about the logistics of building a storage wall into the house. The team is considering a shelving and cabinetry system to maximize the impact of the stairs while providing the house with privacy and some extra storage space.
The first month back in Newbern has flown by, and the 18×18 team is getting excited about building! The new year has brought structural and systems drawings to the table, and new design ideas are always on the way. Check in next month to see where the team is headed in 2023!
