Rosie's Home

A West Alabama Welcome

September 25, 2023

New kids in Hale (Get to know the 3rd-year class!)

The Fall 2023 3rd-year students have landed themselves in Hale! They’ve been through the classic “Neckdown” Week experience and are settling into the daily routine of life in Newbern with a busy schedule. Here to introduce themselves and their “hot takes,” please meet:

Elizabeth Helms is from Dothan, Alabama. Hot take: Milk is better with ice in it.

Hannah Wieland is from Fairhope, Alabama. Hot take: Environmental mistreatment is not a consumer problem.

Tanner Wallace is from Birmingham, Alabama. Hot take: Auburn will beat Bama this year.

Caitlin Ranheim is from Brooklyn, New York. Hot take: Taylor Swift made Kanye famous.

Casey Dillard is from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Hot take: Crocs are a must-have shoe.

Jack Felder is from Savannah, Georgia. Hot take: Morgan Wallen stinks.

McAllister Tucker is from Fairfax, Virginia. Hot take: The movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, is bad.

Kati Warner is from Huntsville, Alabama. Hot take: The live-action Cat in the Hat is the greatest movie in the world.

Bailey Kennedy is from Memphis, Tennessee. Hot take: Dasani tastes good. Spring water is the real criminal.

Kylie Kennedy is from Birmingham, Alabama. Hot take: Architecture is hard-core arts and crafts.

Luke Bradberry is from Suwanee, Georgia. Hot take: We aren’t actually in school right now.

Emma Johnson is from Birmingham, Alabama. Hot take: Pancakes are better with peanut butter on them.

Emma Avery is from Enterprise, Alabama. Hot take: Pineapple is the best pizza topping.

Shannon Brennan is from Newburyport, Massachusetts. Hot take: Cruise ships are a scam.

Cayden Davis is from Coleman, Alabama. Hot take: Auburn will go 10 and 2.

Students laying in hammocks under pavillion.

Model Homes or Pod Life?

The living spaces for the 3rd-year class are split up this year! While you may be familiar with Rural Studio’s typical “pod life,” only some of us are living there. The rest of the crew is down the road testing out the Model Homes. Not only did we get to take the annual 20K House tour and make trading cards for each home, but some of us get to live in Joanne’s, Mac’s, and Dave’s Model Homes. When asked how she liked living in Mac’s Model Home, 3rd-year McAllister Tucker answered that she enjoyed, “getting to share a bathroom with only two people and having an in-house kitchen.” She also said an upside is, “having donkeys as neighbors, but the downside is you can smell them.”

Bailey Kennedy, living in the Cardboard Pod at Morrisette House, said that she likes how the pods are on the main campus: “It’s an awesome spot for Enos [hammocks], and it feels like you are a part of the tradition of Rural Studio.” The Model Homes may have donkeys, but the Pod residents are visited every night by Booty, a wandering dog who was first seen scooting across the lawn nearby!

Outside of shared meals and class, Auburn football is what brings these two groups together. The Model Home kids came to the pods to watch the Auburn-California game on the projector one Saturday. No matter where they live, each 3rd-year student is enjoying their time among their friends at their home in Hale.

Girl and boy move lumber into neat pile in yard.

Students gathered on residential jobsite discussing drawings.

Studio Kickoff

This semester, the 3rd-year class of Fall 2023 is charged with the task of completing Rosie’s Home. This has been an ongoing project since Fall semester 2021. We started with creating a digital 3D model of what has been built so far in Rhinoceros. Not only did we learn which details still needed designing, but we figured out stick-frame construction in the span of a week and got to know the ins and outs of this project. During pin-ups at the site, we were able to meet our clients, Rosie and Frankie.

In this project, we are exploring possibilities with healthy building alternatives, specifically with insulation and interior finish materials. We started with a tour of all the 20K Homes Rural Studio has built in the last 18 years. To understand these precedents, we made a set of trading cards of all the houses. The cards included the materials used in wall construction, as well as what principles they embodied according to “The 9 Foundations of a Healthy Building” by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

To begin the design process, we broke into teams based on our own particular interests for the semester. The selections are as follows:

Millwork and Framing Team: Shannon Brennan, Elizabeth Helms, Caitlin Renheim

Enclosures Team: Bailey Kennedy, McAllister Tucker, Kati Warner, and Hannah Wieland

Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Team: Luke Bradberry, Cayden Davis, Casey Dillard, and Jack Felder

Interiors Team: Emma Avery, Emma Johnson, Kylie Kendall, and Tanner Wallace

Then, we split up and discussed the design focuses and procedures we would have to work through as a group of fifteen and in site teams. After, we were assigned to do interior perspectives of the living space so we could all decide together the big picture questions of designing the inside of the house. Once we make these decisions as a class, we can begin the last phase of construction—the interior space!

Woodshop, What’s Up?

In the Woodshop this semester, the 3rd-years are going to build chairs! We are split up into five groups of three. Each group is going to tackle a different chair designed by a famous architect and complete it by the end of the semester. The instructor for Woodshop class is Steve Long, and he has started by giving interactive tutorials on processing wood and using the equipment.

Before starting their chairs, the groups have been making detailed drawings and storyboards of the production process. To make us more familiar with woodworking, our first mini-project is designing and making a cutting board.

Group of students sitting under a tree in the grass.

History Seminar

Dick Hudgens’ first class in Seminar of Aspects of Design was a dye workshop with Aaron Sanders Head. He taught the class how to make dyes naturally from plants so we could make our own watercolor palettes. Our first field trip in the class was a visit to Glencairn! Glencairn is a house built in the 1830s that has been preserved for visitors. The class toured the house and drew the ground floor plan along with a front elevation.

Group of students gathered to look at 19th century house.

Table covered in jars of watercolor and papers with colored squares.

Life in Hale…

At Rural Studio, we like to stay busy—whether we’re building houses, making watercolors from plants, or constructing chairs from scratch. We carry our creative enthusiasm into after-hours. In our downtime, we love to venture around Hale County. We make our way to Greensboro every Thursday night for trivia or bingo at The Stable, or some nights we head to Nick’s Crispy Chicken on Highway 14, where you can find the best catfish po’ boy this side of the Mississippi River. Another great spot is the Newbern Mercantile, known to us regulars as “The Merc,” right in the heart of Newbern. On the weekends, we love to seek out antique shops and visit local markets.

We’ve probably spent more time outside in the last few weeks, than all the years of childhood recess added up. Just the other morning, some students visited a previous 5th-year project, the Birding Tower in Perry Lakes Park. Here they climbed five flights of stairs just to watch the sunrise. We heard it was well worth it. The country has its perks, even if it’s just driving around to watch the sunset over the catfish ponds.

Two girls hanging out of car watching sunset.

Check back soon to see us hit the ground running on-site at Rosie’s Home! The final construction push has begun, and we can’t wait to show you what’s happening!

Tags: chairclass, historyseminar, polebarnhome, postframehouse, Rosie's Home, rs3rdyears, woodshop

A Windy Welcome

February 8, 2023

The 3rd-year students are back! Rural Studio has welcomed its new students to campus this spring, kicking off the semester with a tornado scare, some porch sitting, and five fresh faces.

A Warm Newbern Welcome

Before the storied Neckdown Week, we picked up right where last semester’s class left off at Rosie’s Home. We are tasked with finishing construction and designing a front porch for the project. But before that, we slowed things down and went on a Hale County front porch tour, as research of course. Our first stop was with Rosie and Frankie, meeting them for some of Frankie’s famous hamburgers in their front yard, taking in the surroundings and getting to know our clients.

students eat lunch at Rosie's home — Lunch at Rosie’s

Conversing outside of Rosie's home — Lunch at Rosie’s

Our next stop was at the Myers’ Home where we enjoyed some lemonade and Judith’s homemade cookies out on the porch. Being a Rural Studio project, the Myers’ porch was a perfect opportunity for us to learn how students in the past had tackled a front porch and how we could learn from their design.

Students talking at a table at the Myer's home — Snacks at the Myers’ porch

Getting lemonade at the Myer's home — Snacks at the Myers’ porch

Next on the agenda was an early morning coffee break with the “leftover” students living at Spencer House. Being new to the program, it was nice for us to get to talk to some Rural Studio veterans and discuss all sorts of things, but most importantly, how they use their own front porch. Here we learned some of the history behind the Spencer House and got to meet Linus, the porch cat.

Students talking at spencer house in the early morning — Coffee with the Spencer House crew

Leftovers on the spencer house porch — Coffee with the Spencer House crew

Moving right along, we next visited Reggie and his porch at another past project, Rev. Walker’s Home. This project is a pole barn structure too, like Rosie’s! We took the time to sketch and measure to get a better understanding of the dimensions we will be working with. After all of that hard work, we took the time to relax and listen to some music.

Students outside of Reggie's home — Reggie’s Home

Student playing guitar at Reggie's home — Reggie’s Home

Taking a break from Newbern, our next stop had us traveling to Whitsitt to meet longtime friends of the Studio, Mike and Frances Sullivan. After enjoying some grilled cheese, taco soup, pound cake, and pecan pie, we did some field work, measuring and sketching the outdoor “shed,” to understand how porches can work in unfamiliar settings. We also saw a buzzing beehive.

Students outside of the Sullivan's shed — The Sullivan’s “porch”

Students measuring the Sullivan's shed — The Sullivan’s “porch”

Students measuring a driveway (closeup) — Measurements to the road!

Lunch at the sullivan"s home — Measurements to the road!

Wrapping up our Hale County front porch tour, we headed to Greensboro to meet Tim Higgins and Aaron Sanders Head to have an afternoon porch sitting. Here we were able to experience a porch similar to Spencer house but one that lived close to the road and close to town. Being so close to infrastructure, this was a great opportunity to study the relationship between the front porch and sound, especially that of semi trucks. Ew!

students talking with Tim and Aaron — Hanging out with Tim and Aaron

Students measuring Tim and Aaron's porch — Hanging out with Tim and Aaron

First Neckdown of 2023

Student painting at the Newbern Playground — Painting at the Newbern Playground

Student cleaning the stairs of the Newbern Firehouse — Painting at the Newbern Playground

Our third full week began at 7:00 AM every morning and saw us helping out around Newbern and Greensboro with Neckdown Week. We helped clean and paint the Bodark Amphitheater, build new raised beds for the farm, fix some plumbing post-freeze, paint the Safe House Museum, repair the Newbern Firehouse, and paint the Newbern playground.

The Return of the 3rds (to Studio)

After moving into our new studio in the Red Barn, we started by taking what we learned from our front porch study and began working on long section drawings. We incorporated the measurements we took as well as the experiential aspects of the visits. The drawings also help create a multimedia drawing with the goal of summarizing our time on the porches. See the finished drawings next month!

Student work (porch study) — Drafts of our porch study drawings

Student work (porch study 2) — Drafts of our porch study drawings

Report from the Woodshop

Our first week of Woodshop class was, to say the least, solid. Hah! We began by studying the past semester’s work on Rosie’s cabinet system and eventually presented a good old-fashioned critique on our thoughts and observations of our peers’ work.

Students talking about cabinets in the wood shop — Discussing cabinets with Steve

Then, we were introduced to our first project, a cutting board!

Color Theory

For our first History class, we met with Aaron to learn how to make our own watercolor/paint dye using foraged materials from around the area including black walnuts, onion skin, iron, cosmos, and sumac leaves. We also learned how to create our own charcoal sticks to use later on in the semester.

Students mixing dye — Learning about the dye making process

Students mixing dye around a fire — Learning about the dye making process

Student charcoal pencils — Look at those colors!

To New Beginnings

We are so happy to finally be here at Rural Studio and can’t wait to share more in the coming months! See you soon!

Tags: pole barn home, Rosie's Home, rs3rdyears

The 4th Month: 3rd-Year Edition

December 12, 2022

As the 3rd-year class moves into the end of the semester we’re working hard on our projects to finish strong in 2022. The Rosie’s Home team compiled construction document sets and began framing the roof. In the Woodshop, 3rd-years started final cabinet construction and drew up storyboards to help hand the project over to next semester’s 3rd-year class. Finally, our History Seminar wrapped up with one big final field trip to Columbus, Mississippi, to see some incredible houses of the Federalist and Greek Revival styles.

On Site Happenings

Things have been moving quickly on site at Rosie’s Home. Since raising the ridge beam, we began framing the rest of the roof. This started with the installation of the rafters at the correct pitch.

3rd-year students attach the roof rafters to the ridge beam

While a team on the ground carefully measured and cut each rafter, another team climbed the scaffolding to secure each rafter into place until hurricane ties can be attached. As the rafters went up, the form of the house really began to take shape!

Once all the rafters were raised, we constructed the large tension members that span across the home. These were partly assembled on the ground and lifted up to the scaffolding to be fit in place.

3rd-year Students assemble the roof rafters in the middle bays of the house

Once fitted, the final pieces of each joist were nailed into place. While these teams were constructing the roof, others were working on the house’s enclosure assembly. We began by cutting away the ZIP sheathing where it covered the doors and windows.

Completed Zip Sheathing under the pole Barn

Once all the rough openings were cut, we taped up all the seams and holes in the ZIP to ensure it stays waterproof. In our last week on site, we also prepared our presentation for Rural Studio’s annual Soup Roast!

This included a final review of all our construction documents with our professors and planning out our final presentation at the site.

Woodshop Wrap-Up

In the Woodshop, we began construction of Rosie’s cabinets. We began by organizing and preparing all of the pieces to be cut. This included a number of templates and cut sheets that ensured uniformity across all of our cabinets. Once all the prep work was done, it was all hands on deck!

We worked methodically to cut, plane, sand, and assemble. In our last days, we gathered and packaged all the unassembled pieces to hand off to next semester’s team of 3rd-year students.

Students begin to understand how to assemble the cabinet faces

Along with the pieces for assembly, we created detailed sets of construction documents and a storyboard so that next semester’s team can quickly and easily pick up where we left off.

The Last History Class

Our final class for our History Seminar was a day-long field trip to Columbus, Mississippi! We set out from Newbern early in the morning.

The day began at Riverview, where we had the opportunity to talk to the home’s owner, who had an expansive collection of period-accurate, mid1800s furniture and decorations.

Riverview is one of the finest examples of Greek Revival mansion’s in the South. It was constructed in the early 1850s, and one of its most striking features is a cupola filled with colorful stained glass.

The Spiral Staircase to the Cupola at Riverview

After Riverview, we stopped for a barbecue lunch at The Little Dooey and made our way to the beautiful Temple Heights mansion. We spent time touring the grounds and drawing elevations.

The Greek Revival mansion sits on a beautiful, lush plot that we all enjoyed relaxing on. Finally, we stopped at the Waverly Mansion. The mansion had recently undergone a large restoration and expansion, which created an immersive experience as we toured the estate.

The Mansion has a breathtaking atrium that travels the entirety of its four floors!

Looking up the 4 floors in the main entrance to Waverly Mansion

Looking down 4 floors into the Waverly Mansion entrance hall

We ended the day with a dinner at Harvey’s Restaurant with our professor and said goodbye to the class for the semester.

Soup Roast

Our final event of the semester was Rural Studio’s annual Soup Roast! Attendees visited each of the Studio’s current projects and watched presentations from their teams. These included a presentation from the 3rd-year students at Rosie’s Home.

We pinned up all of our work from the semester on site, and visiting reviewers provided feedback on the project. This critique will carry over and help Spring semester’s 3rd-years get started on the project. At the end of the day the studio gathered for a hearty soup meal.

Awards were given out for last month’s Beaux Arts watercolors and the site sketchbooks we had been keeping. Jenna took home the award for best watercolor, and Amanda took home the honor of best sketchbook!

student paintings on a table at Soup Roast

We’ve all enjoyed our semester at Rural Studio! We faced a number of challenges, ranging from extreme weather to smelly roadkill, but we faced them all with determination and a passion for what we do. Our time in Newbern has taught us many skills that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives, and for that we couldn’t be more grateful.

Group Photo of students teachers and clients

Until next time, Hale County!

Tags: pole barn home, Rosie's Home, rs3rdyears, rural expansion

The 3rd Month: 3rd-Year Edition

November 18, 2022

As the semester is beginning to wind down, the 3rd-year class has been very busy! We worked hard to finalize drawings and begin construction for Rosie’s Home. In our Woodshop Class, we spent lots of time in the shop finalizing ideas with our mock-up and getting started on Rosie’s kitchen cabinets. With our history seminar ending, we finished up our watercolors and visited some of our final houses.

Rosie’s Home

Since our last post, Rosie’s House has made a lot of progress. At the Halloween Reviews, visiting architects came to critique and help improve our design. It was not all business though, everyone came dressed up in their Halloween costumes (even the reviewers)!

Student presenting work for halloween review.

The third year class riding their halloween school bus!

With Halloween Reviews over and designs complete, we were ready to begin construction! We started construction by re-framing some of the exterior walls, windows, and doors. After the walls were nailed together, we raised and set them in place.

Students nailing together studs to frame the wall.

Students raising the newly framed wall and setting it in place.

After our walls were up, we began to measure and place our ZIP System sheathing. The sheathing helped brace our walls to keep them nice and square during construction.

Students applying and leveling the sheathing.

A student nailing the sheathing to the stud wall.

With our walls up and sheathing in place, we then turned our attention to the ceiling! First, we set up temporary supports to lift up our ridge beam. Next, we climbed up the scaffolding to nail the ridge pieces together. Soon the ceiling will be completely framed!

Students working together to raise and set the ridge beam in place.

Students nailing together the ridge beam pieces into one solid member.

Woodshop Class

During our first week back from Fall break, we spent each night in the Woodshop cutting pieces, making jigs, and gluing and assembling to have our cabinet mock-up done by the following week. Our mock-up consisted of three drawers and two shelves. We divided up jobs and worked together to make the construction process go as quickly and smoothly as possible.

Student measuring Hardwood Door Face Pieces to be cut, glued, and sanded. — Students measuring hardwood door pieces, using the track saw to cut large sheets of plywood, and assembling mockup boxes

Students cutting large plywood pieces for cabinet boxes with the track saw. — Students measuring hardwood door pieces, using the track saw to cut large sheets of plywood, and assembling mockup boxes

The following week, we met with our instructors, Steve Long and Judith Seaman, to review our mock-up process and design. From the mock-up, we decided to narrow our focus on the kitchen cabinets for this semester and noted ways to improve our construction process. We revised our drawings and made a weekly schedule to prepare for the final weeks of the semester.

Hard Wood faces for the cabinets — Hardwood faces

Finally, in the last few weeks, we started by ordering, processing, and organizing our woods and materials. We have been working hard to plan, cut, and begin assembly on Rosie’s final kitchen cabinets. With most of our pieces cut out and three cabinet boxes assembled, we are excited to continue work on some wonderful cabinets for Rosie’s kitchen.

Students assembling the Cabinet box — Student planing hardwood

History Class

Recently in history class, we continued to tour historic Antebellum homes every week. Our focus has been shifting from sketching towards our final watercolor. This watercolor is 24″ x 30″ and depicts an elevation of different architectural details.

A student water color of Bousillage. — Bousillage

A student water color of peeling paint. — Bousillage

In October, we had the chance to tour Tasso Plantation in Orrville, AL. This house has an incredibly rare and intact wooden block wallpaper print. This print, “Banks of the Bosphorus,” depicts a panoramic view of minarets and waterways around the entire room.

Photo of the Banks of the Bosphorus wallpaper inside Tasso Plantation.

The next week, we visited Carlisle Hall near Marion, AL. This grand house was designed by Richard Upjohn in the asymmetrical Italianate style.

Photo of Carlisle Hall's front entrance.

The following week, we visited Old Cahawba, AL. On the site, some buildings remain of the abandoned town and foundations outline where others once stood. Outlined in steel is the original courthouse that once stood at the center of town. Rural Studio students disassembled and moved St. Luke’s Church back in the park many years ago.

Photo of St. Lukes church front elevation.

We also visited Thornhill Plantation in Forkland, AL. This Greek revival house was once one of the largest plantations in the area. It sits atop a hill with 360-degree views of the property.

The spiral staircase of Thornhill Plantation. — Thornhill Plantation

Stay tuned for next month’s blog to see our final class field trip to Mississippi!

Tags: custom cabinetry, historyclass, pole barn home, Rosie's Home, rs3rdyears, woodshopclass

Fresh Faces in Newbern!

February 2, 2022

The start of 2022 brings six new 3rd-year students to Hale County, Alabama! Get to know the students who will be continuing the work on Rosie’s Home this Spring!

Anna Leach is from Gadsden, AL

Grant Schurman hails from Mount Carroll, IL

Jon Hunt Ficken is homegrown from Auburn, AL

Julia Whitt is from Abbeville, AL

Sarah Recht calls Atlanta, GA, home

Will Robinson comes to Rural Studio from Madison, AL

What’s happening in Hale?

These six 3rd-year students are following up on the work from the Fall 2021 semester for clients Rosie and Frankie. Rosie’s Home is planned as a continuation of Rural Studio’s residential post-frame research. This spring, students will see the post-frame structure, or “pole barn,” raised by a locally contracted team.

With this investment in labor and a covered site early on in the building process, site work can continue through weather delays and should lead to an overall cost reduction in the project. Following the construction of the roof, the 3rd-years will work to design the interior scheme based on 20K Turner’s Home plan, which was originally built by another group of Rural Studio students in 2012. Additionally, they will be charged with much of the exterior detailing of the home beneath the roof.

But wait, there’s more!

In addition to their studio work, the group will be taking two classes. First, there’s Woodshop with instructor Steve Long, where the infamous “chair project” is making a return! Students are assigned a famous wooden chair and must research the dimensions and production. Then, they will design a process for constructing it in Rural Studio’s very own shop.

The Woodshop in the heart of downtown Newbern!

The students will also study with local architect Dick Hudgens in the long-standing History and Watercolor class. The students will visit historic homes, churches, and agricultural buildings in the Black Belt each Monday afternoon. They’ll learn the history of how these structures were built and used, as well as the context in which this history happened. The students will also complete watercolor assignments along the way to document what they are learning and build representation skills.

Dick and students study historic brick details.

With all this happening, it’s going to be a busy Spring! But that’s certainly not a new phenomenon out here. Keep an eye out to see what hands-on assignments have kicked off the year for these folks.

The Spring 2022 3rd-year class stands with professor Emily McGlohn and instructor Judith Seaman.

Tags: polebarn, postframe, Rosie's Home, rs3rdyears