This new group of 3rd-year students at Rural Studio is a small, but mighty team of two students. Peter and Laura are working with 3rd-year professor Emily McGlohn and instructor Chelsea Elcott to design and build a small home for one of our West Alabama neighbors.
Meet the new 3rd-years
Meet Laura Forrest and Peter Harpring, the dynamic duo! These two, although having just met each other, are proving to be a solid pair.
Peter is from Louisville, Kentucky. He’s an introvert, a younger sibling, and loves summer, dogs, and coffee. Laura is from Corner, Alabama. She’s an extrovert, an older sibling, and loves winter, cats, and tea. Despite their differences, synergy runs well with these two.
Drafting Practice
Emily and Chelsea began the semester by introducing a type of design presentation their students are less familiar with: hand drafting. At Rural Studio, the most-used methods to visually portray an idea are sketching, diagramming by hand, and drafting.
To become more acquainted with hand-drafting tools—like lead holders and T squares—Laura and Peter revisited a design project from their previous architecture school year and practiced hand drawing and diagramming. Through returning to projects they were already familiar with, the 3rd-years could spend more time focusing on the process of drawing by hand rather than learning a new skill while designing a project at the same time.
Laura’s final hand-drafting assignment 
Peter’s final hand-drafting assignment
Learning to Draw 1:1 Detail Drawings
Once the 3rd-years mastered their hand-drawing technique, they began a Full-Scale Drawing Workshop. To better understand what makes up a wood-framed house, the 3rd-year cohort traveled to building sites around Newbern that were under various stages of completion. Starting at Rev. Walker’s Home’s unfinished “bonus room,” Laura and Peter learned a new vocabulary of construction terms and were able to translate the incomplete wall assembly that they saw into a detailed section drawing through a wall. Then, the whole team visited the Model Homes closed-up and finished wall cavities and, with a little guidance, created a one-to-one scale drawing of a section through 20K Joanne’s Model Home, depicting the structure and details all the way from the ground up to the roof.
A Little Bit of On-Site Construction Work
After Labor Day weekend, the 3rd-year crew took a break from their studio work in Red Barn and set out to get some on-site experience. In just a couple of days, the team finished a few small projects at recently completed 3rd-year projects: 20K Ophelia’s Home and Mrs. Patrick’s Home. Laura, with the help of Mason’s welding expertise, fabricated a steel handrail for Ophelia’s back porch. To make Mrs. Patrick’s porch a little safer and more easily accessed, Peter, Emily, and Chelsea added a few stairs to her front porch.
It’s going to be a jam-packed semester. Stay tuned on our blog!