mockups

Do a Flip

June 28, 2023

You haven’t heard from the 18×18 House team in a while.

And they’ve been busy! Now officially “leftovers,” the squares graduated in early May, so everyone is feeling grown-up and very official. Pig Roast was a great chance for friends and family and visitors to catch up with the project, and for the team to explain the scheme of the house they were planning to build.

But then, everything changed…..AGAIN. Very recently, the 18×18 House was flipped on its head another time, with sleeping and bath on the ground floor and living and cooking elevated above. By cutting the third-story loft almost in half and extending it to the dormer, they found more usable space up there and vertical interest in the house. Now, the living room is below a balcony of sorts, and the loft has access to operable windows in the dormer. The team is pretty excited about making a double-height space happen in the living room, because the house now has a grand reveal when going up the main stairs.

At the same time, the mock-up has begun! The squares got their first shovels in the ground and poured their backyard slab for their doghouse-sized version of the project. Next comes tiny framed walls, sheathing, and cladding. Getting started with work on site is just around the corner!

Tags: 18x18house, mockup, mockups, rs5thyears, rsleftovers, ruralhome

A Site For Sore Eyes

April 23, 2023

The 18×18 House team kicked off the past month with their most important deadline so far, the first Executive Review. Justin Miller (Associate Professor and Head, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture), Rusty Smith (Rural Studio Associate Director), and Rural Studio faculty were all in attendance to evaluate the team’s progress and give important feedback as the team prepares to push towards the next construction phase after graduation. At this review, the team also gave a new version of their presentation where they talked in depth about the different types of constrains on rural sites.

They got some great feedback from this Executive Review and kept working to refine the details of the design and structure. For the next few weeks, the team shifted focus towards the porch and overall cladding strategy of the 18×18 House.

The first event after the review was one of the most inspiring times of the project. The team finally met their client and received the site they will be building on! Their client Detyrick is a Greensboro native, and the team is very excited to be working with him in the coming months. After meeting the client, the team headed out onto the site for their 1^st round of surveying to get an idea of what the topography is that they’ll be working with.

The next week, Chicago architect Pete Landon came to Newbern. He worked with the team on the aperture placements in the 18×18 House. Pete challenged the team to work from the inside out. First, they should use the size and height of windows to direct light and views in the space. Then they should put this plan to the test with a mock-up. So, the team built a full-size stud wall, which they tilted up and covered with rigid insulation to mock-up the living space. The exercise helped them understand where to increase the perceived size of the room with openings in the wall and the storage wall.

Meagan and Naomi in the full scale mock-up space

The team used their mock-up wall to pin up their work for their next guests: North Carolina architects Katherine Hogan and Vincent Petrarca. The pin up wall was a disaster, but the workshop was a lot of fun. They built on the previous workshops by working on the apertures in elevation and considering the porch.

Study models of the 18×18 House and porch

The final guest was Louisville architect Roberto De Leon. He pushed the team to explore the spatial qualities of the storage wall and porch and dive into some finer details.

18×18 House team review with Roberto De Leon

So much has happened for the 18×18 House team in such a short time. With a client in mind and a site to study, the project feels more real than ever and the team could not be more excited for what is to come. And as the end of the semester approaches, the team will be building mock-ups, getting their hands dirty, and doing everything they can to set the project up for success ahead of Pig Roast and the final Executive Review.

Tags: 18x18house, mockups, rs5thyears

Summer Shenanigans

June 9, 2022

The Patriece’s Home team, affectionately known around the Studio as the “Stairs Team,” just hasn’t gotten enough of Hale County! Now college grads and no longer students, Adam, Laurel, Daniel and Lauren picked right back up and finished their details mock-up as “leftovers.” The team is using their mock-up to test metal shade devices for windows and the articulation of their wood-clad porches.

A model of a wall with corrugated metal siding and a window with black shade devices around it.

The team's detail mockup covered in ZIP panels

After hunting through differing foundation types for their home, the team talked to Tyler from C & T Excavating Inc. and is now moving forward with a plan to sculpt the site with engineered fill for their slab-on-grade foundation.

A Sketched perspective from the home's front porch interior looking out onto the landscape and front driveway

A sketched perspective from the home's side porch interior, looking toward the trailer

Patriece’s Home has been focusing on the landscape opportunities in their home’s design. They are not only using natural, space-making tools to ground the house on the site, but to shape and protect areas of outdoor activity, such as play, sitting, parking, and driving. The team Zoomed with Emily Knox, a landscape architecture professor from Auburn University, to discuss their design for siting home, how the landscape design can extend across the whole site, and both existing and potential “materials” (trees, shrubs, grasses) for the site.

a plan diagram of the manipulated topography lines

a plan diagram with blue arrows shows how water shed off the site

an axon perspective of the driveway entry to the site

a plan sketch of the proposed landscape plan of the site

Thankfully, the team had their mock-up and details ready to be reviewed because our friend and consultant Dan Wheeler (from Wheeler Kearns Architects in Chicago, IL) showed up again! Dan had an intense design discussion with the team about the wood cladding on the interior and exterior of the home. He left the group with lots of tips and a positive direction toward establishing a character for the wood details. Let’s see what the team decides!

a sketched perspective of the interior stairs clad in horizontal wood that has been cut to equal lengths.

students gather around a man kneeling as he points to a drawing on the wall

And because the team is itching (literally, the mosquitoes are waking up) to start work on site, they completed their batter boards for their excavation date set in two weeks! They will be in the business of purchasing, perfecting, and tying loose ends as they eagerly await this date. So wait for the next blog post when the team will be playing in the dirt!

Until then, here is a gallery of some Hale County summer shenanigans!

the camera is looking through the site transit and frames an image of a student sticking their tongue out with a measuring pole

Tags: details, mockups, patriceshome, research project, rs5thyears, siteprep, stairs, summer

This Little Light of Mine

April 14, 2022

April has arrived which means the heat is beginning to creep into sunny afternoons, pollen has layered every outdoor surface, and the Moundville Pavilion Team is making decisions. In recent weeks, we have met with visiting architects and lighting consultants and have begun to get into the nuts and bolts (literally and figuratively) of how to detail the elements of the pavilion

Open for Spring

After Executive Review, we started to find a middle ground between the form and function of the column design. We had Pete Landon and Cameron Acheson from Landon Bone Baker Architects out of Chicago, IL, out for a review of the team’s work.

The team presented their designs to Pete Landon and Cameron Acheson

detailed drawing of ceiling panels — We sketched the prefabricated ceiling panels.

The structure of the roof and ceiling sandwich the trusses.

The column tapers out to 12″ and then meets a steel skirt that emerges from the ground.

The team discussed the tapered column mockup with Pete and Cameron.

We cut and built the column mockup using foam insulation.

They helped the team focus on the longevity of the roof surface; since the pavilion will reside in a heavily forested area, a durable surface is critical to withstand decomposing pine straw and potentially fallen branches.

This rendering shows the family of tapered wood columns and the steel skirts below.

Turning on the Lights

Since the pavilion is located in the campground and the space will likely be inhabited after dusk, the team has been researching lighting strategies in order to provide safety and usability at night.

The team sketched how the steel skirt could be used for lighting and electrical.

We created mock-ups of lighting in the steel base.

In addition to modeling some hidden fixtures options, the team met with lighting designer, Thomas Paterson (Lux Populi in Mexico City, Mexico) who explained possible lighting methods that can relate to the concept. Most recently, we tested lighting schemes on-site.

testing lighting under pavilion — The team tested lighting under the ceiling mock-up using lamps.

A handful of different lighting directions and positions were tested.

After finalizing more details within the roof and ceiling structure, it was time to start working on a large-scale framing model. Next up, is the annual Pig Roast Celebration!

Tags: 5thyear, 5thyears, details, Lighting, mockup, mockups, moundville, moundvillepavilion, rs5thyears, ruralstudio

The Emerging Story of the Emergency Shelters

November 5, 2021

Every year during spooky season, the Studio hosts visiting architects and professors for a day of “boos” and reviews. This hallowed event has come to be known as Halloween Reviews, and every student was “working like a dog” to prepare. Let’s look at “a day in the life” of the C.H.O.I.C.E. House team leading up to the big review, shall we? (Ps. Can you guess what the team’s costume was by the end of this post?)

The team began by preparing all the drawings they would need for their presentation. They consolidated the existing plans, sections, and diagrams from “here, there and everywhere,” and completed any new drawings that were needed.

Next up, the team needed to make edits to their presentation and practice presenting to other teams in preparation for Halloween Reviews. This task is a never-ending process that the team seems to be working on “eight days a week!” But, they got it done, “with a little help from my friends.”

Once the team was confident in their presentation, they decided to “let it be.” Next, they started to “bang bang” their “silver hammers” to build full-scale mock-ups of two out of the four units. These mock-ups allowed people to experience the small space inside and the different porch conditions created by the units.

On Wednesday night, the team took a break to celebrate the annual Pumpkin Carve, an Auburn Architecture tradition. Everyone from the community is invited to “come together,” outside Red Barn to carve pumpkins and eat foot long hot dogs… because “all you need is love,” pumpkins, and hot dogs, right?!”

The day before Halloween reviews, the team spent “fixing a hole” and “filling the cracks” of the mock-ups and their presentation. After “a hard day’s night,” the big day had finally arrived. Under a “sky of blue and sea of green,” teams dressed in costumes the students presented and the reviewers, “speaking words of wisdom.”

The team received a lot of helpful feedback on their work that really help to “shake it up, baby!” Now, the C.H.O.I.C.E. House team is ready to get back to the drawing board and “work it on out!”