Field-tripping at the Rural Studio

This Thursday Studio Stewardship headed out for Newburn, Alabama to check out the work of the Rural Studio. Friday we toured the countryside with Dan, a former student and current professor of the Rural Studio, to see some of their most notable works.

I was really excited about the trip because I have always been a fan of the Rural Studio and have admired the projects that I read about in various periodicals. Seeing these works that I have always admired up-close gave me the opportunity to not only admire them more, but also to view them with a critical eye. The projects really are amazing, and knowing that students like myself were able to come together to design and build them is really inspiring. I am also interested in the way that they view the needs of their community. However, actually visiting the studio and interacting with students and workers gave me a less whitewashed view of this aspect of the Rural Studio. Among the projects that we encountered we saw many examples of success, but also several instances of shortcoming.

Although these projects are quite successful from my point of view as an architecture student, there were many times when I thought that some details (and even some large points) were neglected. For example, in the Newbern fire station and town hall is a beautiful building, but the use of a difficult to use space-saving stair and the lack of an elevator makes the top floor where meetings were designed to be held less accessible to older and handicapped members of the community. The stairs are architecturally interesting, but even one of our students tripp

ed while trying to go down them; I can imagine the trouble that someone much older would have with them.

The Perry County Learning Center is an alternative school, and has a really beautiful interior design. However, one of the first things that hit me when we went in was how warm it was on the inside; I wondered if it was due to a great insulating system that the students had worked out. On further inspection around the windows, I found that there were many holes and old rotting moldings which were allowing cold air to enter freely; the warm atmosphere inside was due to heat being constantly pumped in. If more attention had been paid to the detailing around the windows and the exterior walls their heating and air conditioning needs would be much lower.

Even though there were many flaws among the designs, I still enjoyed being in these student-created spaces, and my favorite project that I read about my first year as an architecture student remains my favorite to this day. Lucy House, a home made primarily of recycled carpet squares, was built for a poor black family in Mason's Bend. The students worked with the non-recyclable waste materials of Interface, the world's largest carpet tile manufacturer, to come up with a novel way to integrate these into their design. The result was, in my opinion, a very beautiful building which uses the natural properties of the carpet tiles to insulate the house. Although we were not allowed into the home, we were allowed to circle it and take photos of the exterior. I regret that I was not able to see first-hand the internal qualities of the house, but I was impressed with the exterior. The carpet tiles create a multicolored banding which is complemented by the elegant windows that the students built. On one side of the building is a red tower that takes on a crumpled geometric form and houses the master bedroom. Although we had mixed feelings about the necessity of the form, I feel that it is an interesting feature that probably gives the interior of the bedroom a unique quality. Once again, I regret not being able to experience this space.
The building is not perfect: there are times above the windows where the tiles have settled and made irregular lines and small gaps, but these did not appear to be major flaws and they actually gave the house a character that I really liked. I believe that perfection is not something that one should strive unusually hard to attain in an architecture because the lack of perfection is what gives the piece a human, hand-crafted quality. I really appreciated this project because I think that the students achieved one thing that we ultimately hope to achieve in this studio: a new use for a material which can educate the public on the possibilities of re-using ordinary materials in a new, novel way.

New Beginnings...

The students of Studio Stewardship are about to embark upon a journey which I am very excited about: actually bringing two projects that we have designed to fruition. 

Although I am looking forward to seeing a design that I have had a hand in actually become a physical manifestation beyond a small-scale model, I honestly believe that the most meaningful aspect of both projects will be directly observing their immediate impact upon their surroundings (including landscape, flora, fauna, and people of the respective communities). I feel this way because as a student of architecture, I feel that one missing link in my education thus far has been my being distanced from the actual repercussions that a design I have created would have. It has been easy up until now to  neglect this impact and just assume that a design I created would have an optimal impact on the site and its inhabitants. It is also going to be a crucial part of my education into making things actually work within a site; I have had several projects which I presented theoretical proposals for ideas  like energy harvesting and community involvement but I never got to see if my ideas would really work in the "real world". I think that this studio is going to change that by allowing us to see the fruits (and thorns) created by our labors.

Although I have no idea what these repercussions will be, I am thinking positively and believe that we will have an overall positive impact on each community. However, I anticipate this being a difficult process, where the initial designs and construction processes that we propose will have to be significantly modified to meet unexpected community needs and demands. Therefore, there will probably be times when we may actually cause an obstruction or eyesore in each community and have some negative reactions, but I believe that in the end we will have created architectures that have a positive impact. This will be, after all, a learning experience for not only us but also for each community. I hope that we will have a lot of community involvement (especially for our social gatherings like the proposed barbeque), but I really feel like there will be less than we would like. The Pendleton site has already been tapped for information and suggestions, but I am not sure if that will make conversation with that community easier or more difficult. Although the Clemson site is located in an area inhabited by a mix of children, students, and residents, I imagine that it will still be difficult getting people outside the architecture department excited about participating in what we design: particularly in the beginning. 

This will be a difficult process. I have no doubt about this. We are a studio full of designers that all have strong ideas about the project that we all want incorporated into the final designs. Many of us (particularly the undergraduates) also have very little experience in making full-scale, functioning projects. However, I feel that the most difficult aspect of these two projects will inevitably be actually finishing them in the allotted time. Many of us are graduating in May and I doubt that anyone will be willing to stay very long after graduation to finish either of these structures. The Pendleton site has already experienced this problem, and I feel that it will be our task to not only complete what they started, but also whatever WE start. 

Buona fortuna, studio: this promises to be a wild ride!