workshops

Introducing… The Fabulous Pavilion

Braces, Splices, and Trusses, oh my!

The 5th-year students have been in Hale for a couple months working as a team of eight on two new projects: the Fabrication Pavilion and CLT Core House. Now we are excited to finally introduce you to the new 2023 Fabrication Pavilion team!

Polaroid photos of (left to right) Tatum DeBardeleben, Marcelo Aldrete, Anna Leach, and Laura Forrest

Tatum DeBardeleben is from Auburn, Alabama. She used to be an equestrian camp counselor and is a lover of wooden utensils.

Marcelo Aldrete comes all the way from Austin, Texas. He is a former builder of tiny homes and a proud bearded dragon dad.

Anna Leach is from Gadsden, Alabama. She loves twirling flaming batons and is an aquarium enthusiast.

Laura Forrest hails from Corner, Alabama. She has been a roller-skating carhop and has a cat who likes high-fiving.

Our Challenge

We have been challenged to pick up where the 2015 Fabrication Pavilion team left off. We will be renovating the structure so that it can continue to serve Rural Studio for years to come. This task includes making some structural repairs to the existing building, planning for an extension, and making changes to the layout of campus so that the Pavilion works as effectively as possible.

Workshopping It Out

Since August, we have had a variety of workshops to explore options for the Fabrication Pavilion with our guests. We began with site planning—balancing the need for student, faculty, and trailer parking with vehicle clearances and turnarounds for deliveries—along with determining the best placement for a new pole barn for storage on campus.

The team also did a story-poling exercise to test out different locations and sizes for possible additions to the Fabrication Pavilion.

Additionally, the entire class accompanied Frank Harmon and Dan Wheeler around Greensboro and Newbern for a sketching and watercolor workshop, with subjects ranging from Morrisette House to Marcelo’s own apartment to Andrew Freear’s wallet! This workshop focused on sketching as a tool for memory, study, and seeing.

Watercolor Perspective of the Great Hall at Morisette House by Tatum DeBardeleben
A beautiful day to watercolor

Under Repair

Under the instruction of our teachers and structural engineer, we have been constructing scaffolding and bracing for the Fabrication Pavilion’s columns. In the next week, we will begin repairing the columns by removing the original wooden blocking and replacing it with larger galvanized steel tubing.

Looks Like We Have Another Review on Our Hands

This past Friday, we got all dressed up for Halloween Reviews as the Scooby-Doo gang, complete with our own Fabrication Pavilion Mystery Machine. This review gave us much-needed insight into our schemes. We have been encouraged to look deeper into the possibilities of what the Fabrication Pavilion can become and to experiment further.

We’re looking forward to seeing how this space evolves from how it has functioned in the past to how it will aid students in Rural Studio’s future. If you would like to accompany us on that journey, check back in with our future blogs!

Lofts and Lots of Fun

The 18×18 House team got all dressed up and presented at the Halloween Reviews as cubes: an oven, an ice cube dressed as Ice Cube, a LEGO, and a present.

Their review gave the team some much needed insight into what was working well in their design schemes and how to further improve them. They were pushed by guest reviewers to dive deeper into some of the details and to find the potential “beautiful” qualities of the 18×18 House.

Since then, the team has been pushing the 18×18 House design to its limits by asking: How much more can you get beyond the essential design needs? The team categorized essential and non-essential elements. The next step was to test how small changes to the plans could give way for things like additional storage, additive porches, or sleeping lofts.

At the beginning of November, we were visited by friends of the Studio Frank Harmon (Frank Harmon Architect in Raleigh, NC) and Dan Wheeler (Wheeler Kearns Architects in Chicago, IL). They pushed the team to explore how the interior layouts and roof shape can facilitate porches and lofts. The team developed concepts showing how the buildings can aggregate and they tested appropriate sizes for the spaces through models and sketches. The loft exploration got the team especially excited about the idea of an upstairs living room and how beautiful the space can be when a sleeping loft pairs with a living-sleeping configuration.

Dan and Frank also led the 5th-years in very special hand-drawing workshop. The students practiced one-point and two-point perspectives and enjoyed a relaxing watercolor session.

After that, the 18×18 House team worked together to mock up ceiling heights downstairs in Red Barn. They tested 7′ 6″ and 8′ ceiling heights to find out the minimum comfortable height for a ground floor bedroom. One failed pulley system later, they decided to mock up only the 7′ 6″ ceiling instead.

Most recently, the Studio had a few more visitors: David Baker, Amanda Loper, and Brett Jones (from David Baker Architects, with offices in San Francisco, CA, and Birmingham, AL). They helped the team refine their priorities so they could finally narrow them and move forward with two. 

Now the team is getting down to the details and working towards Soup Roast, which is in two weeks! Catch the next post to see where the 18×18 House lands next!

Workshop Season in Newbern

The fall semester is here, which means we have twelve new 5th-year students in Hale County.

We’re excited to share the three new 5th-year projects on the boards: Emergency housing built for a local nonprofit, C.H.O.I.C.E.; a new home exploring attic trusses; and the continuation of the Moundville Archaeological Park Community Pavilion.

As always, the semester kicked off with a week of “Neckdown” projects before leading us into the workshop season and project selection! Starting with a visit from Birmingham’s own, architect, John Forney, we did a deep dive on adaptability by studying the Myers’ Home. Anderson Inge, from the Anderson Inge Building Workshop in London, kept up the momentum when we worked in groups to explore the many possibilities that Moundville’s existing structure might offer: each group developed cladding strategies for the existing trusses using design strategies like framed openings and provocative material scale.

Chicagoan Dan Wheeler, of Wheeler Kearns Architects, led us through a warm and breezy morning of sketching exercises, including a foray into portraiture that taught us we should stick to our day jobs! Cheryl Noel and Ravi Ricker, from Wrap Architecture in Chicago, IL, visited next to pivot us back to all things code. They encouraged us to be mindful of code throughout our design process so that it doesn’t come back to bite us down the road. We also used their visit to demystify stair dimensions, a crucial component of one of our project options. Rounding out the workshops was a visit from Jake LaBarre from Neighborhood Design Build Studio and BuildingWork and Kim Clements and Joe Schneider from JAS Design Build in Seattle, WA, the perfect trio to help us diagram our way through our potential projects.

We ended this workshop season with the daunting, exciting, and mysterious challenge of team selection. After six weeks of workshops and a long night of discussion, we are happy to announce Rural Studio’s three newest teams!

Meet the new 5th-year teams

Emergency shelter in partnership with C.H.O.I.C.E.: AC Priest (Saltillo, MS), Davis Benfer (Jacksonville, FL), Hailey Osborne (Ashburn, VA), Yi Xuan (Raymond) Teo (Singapore)

Moundville Community Pavilion: Brenton Smith (Dothan, AL), Caitlyn Biffle (Rogersville, AL), Jackie Rosborough (IL), Collin Brown (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada)

Client home: Adam Davis (Spanish Fort, AL), Daniel Burton (Prattville, AL), Lauren Lovell (Hoover, AL), Laurel Holloway (Huntsville, AL)

Stay tuned to the project blogs to learn more about each project this year!