Rural Studio - Auburn University

10/09/2026

Great partnerships are behind new energy-efficient houses in Tennessee. Rural Studio’s Front Porch Initiative has been working closely with Eastern Eight Community Development Corporation to serve residents in the Volunteer State. Check out the creative solutions to a sloped infill lot in Bristol and duplexes intended for community members in Johnson City.

Lilly Street E8CDC Builds on Small Lots in Hilly Eastern Tennessee Eastern Eight Community Development Corporation (E8CDC) is expanding housing opportunities in their corner of Northeast Tennessee and has been a valued long-term partner of the Front Porch Initiative (FPI). After finishing a home tog...

10/08/2026

Meet the Chef! Amanda Pinkstaff is Rural Studio’s Food Service Supervisor. A native of Greensboro, Amanda brings a broad culinary background to the position: she graduated from the world-renowned French Pastry School in Chicago, IL, and worked several years at the Ritz Carlton in New Orleans, LA. Eventually, Le Cordon Bleu in St. Louis MO, scooped Amanda up to be one of their Pastry Chef Instructors. She remained in St. Louis for 14 years before returning home to Hale County. Her favorite kitchen tool is the spatula because it can scrape out all of the useable food from a bowl, saving money and minimizing waste. We're so lucky to have her on our team! Get to know her in our latest blog feature: https://ruralstudio.org/amanda-pinkstaff-cooking-full-circle/

10/07/2026

The Fall 2026 cohort of students working on Mark’s Home are picking up where the last 3rd-year cohort—and the summer contractors—left off. But students didn’t just arrive and head to the site. They completed safety training, immersed themselves in Rural Studio values during “Neckdown” week, and warmed up with a mini-project for the Farm: a chicken coop! These students are demonstrating and honing their collaborative skills, a must for Rural Studio’s design-build work.

The students are now back on site for Mark’s new home. This project builds on decades of Rural Studio’s housing affordability and resilience research. We’re partnering with our client Mark to design and build a one-bedroom, one-bathroom prototype house that enhances energy efficiency, durability, and climate resilience for disaster-prone regions like ours.

10/07/2026

Recently, our students learned from the founders and principals of the award-winning de Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop in Louisville, KY. Roberto de Leon and Ross Primmer emphasize attending to the local context of any given project. They start afresh with each new project and each new challenge. They have a style that defies being pigeonholed even as they do a particular kind of project. Roberto and Ross prefer to do small public civic projects or work with not-for-profits, working for the greater good. Their projects have a joyous array of materiality. They love to explore the quality of a highlighted natural material and display it to the users and the visitors. The work is both humble and exuberant. This was the attitude they brought to the student conversations—celebrating the everyday and the ordinary—and making it extraordinary. We're honored to have them as part of our Workshops and Lecture Series and hope they return again soon!

09/25/2026

Earlier this week, students were treated to a lighting workshop run by Thomas Paterson from Lux Populi in Mexico City. In his beloved workshop, Thomas brought decades of technical expertise. His first question to our young architects was, “What is the atmosphere you are trying to achieve for the space?” Yet he also emphasized “solving lighting needs, beautifully.” As he has said, that comma is important: Lighting must meet needs first. After that, we make sure the solution is attractive, elegant, atmospheric. Lux Populi

09/25/2026

Our recent Homestead Day brought together dozens of experts to share strategies for the modern homestead, and answer questions to modern rural challenges.

Rural communities grow and preserve food. We raise fish. We navigate land issues like heirs’ property, conservation, and wastewater management. We appreciate the abundant beauty but also need to keep honing our strategies for successful rural living.

Hence, the free event called Homestead Day, brought to you by Auburn University Rural Studio; the Auburn University College of Architecture, Design and Construction; and the Aquatics Resources Team from the Alabama Extension (ACES). The day was full of practical takeaways for the adults and fun and learning for the kids.

09/15/2026

Handovers for multi-stage projects are tricky. The previous Bathhouse team and the new 5th-years held a Workshop Week to share project goals and challenges, what has been designed, what hasn’t yet, and how components work.

The Bathhouse will accommodate our 3rd-year students who spend a semester living, learning, and getting their hands dirty at Rural Studio. The vision for the Bathhouse: a beautiful, ritualistic experience for those student to remember.

The building will use composite “logs” (six true 2x8s nailed together) to create stacked timbers. These logs are water-resilient cypress, but they still expand with moisture and contract when dry. Among other things, the Phase-1 team—Ambar, Logan, Carla, and Ashley—developed the stacking process, prepared the logs, and developed and built a roof structure. These pieces aren’t yet in place, but the base and concrete foundation are ready for the new team to build on. Phase 1 shared the status and their reasoning with the new 5th-years, including how the threaded rods will tightly compress the stacked timber from top to bottom. The team imparted other wisdom, too: how to safely move the logs, arrange and stack them, arrange them so the smoothest parts are on the interior, and build a jig as formwork to stack the logs against. The new students practiced some of these techniques, under guidance, and even mounted a small section of roof on the walls.

The workshop also covered tolerances, precision, and future design opportunities. Rural Studio is a design-build program, and every team designs. The first team’s design work addressed how the project engages the trees to the north and the landscape and campus buildings, the global choices behind the project (especially for resilience, maintenance ease, and ADA accessibility), and what is visually acceptable culturally, in terms of material finesse. The new team aims to create a beautiful bathing experience but also help delineate a courtyard for rest, delight, and joy. Follow along as the new students tackle Phase 2! And thanks to Ambar, Logan, Carla, and Ashley for all their hard work on Phase 1 and for returning to teach the new crew!

09/11/2026

Rain or shine, we'll see you tomorrow for Homestead Day! 9am-1pm in Newbern!

Ready to grow your homesteading knowledge?

Join Auburn University Rural Studio and Alabama Extension for Homestead Day, a free event featuring demonstrations, conversations and activities for small landowners. Learn more about topics related to food, farming, water, land and home while connecting with experts and others.

Saturday, Sept. 12, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Auburn Rural Studio, 8448 Alabama Highway 61, Newbern, AL 36765
Admission is free. Food trucks will be on site.

View the complete schedule and register: https://ruralstudio.org/2026-homestead-day/

09/11/2026

We accomplished so much in the Fall 2026 Neckdown that we’re afraid we’ve missed sharing a detail or two. We maintained projects and beloved spaces, of course, and gave a couple of current projects a boost. But we also provided a hands-on lesson in stewardship. Huge thanks to all who participated! Read all about it in our latest blog.

Our Fall 2026 “Neckdown” week was a smashing success! During Neckdown, students, faculty, and guest volunteer helpers step back from the heavy duty thought-based work to focus on the physical labor we need to do—labor to keep projects in excellent shape, maintain the spaces we love, and give p...

09/03/2026

The Deborah’s Home team highlights Rural Studio’s storied design process: iteratively work through a design, mocking up, testing, critiquing, and reevaluating. Students learn how the process of building influences the design, from design to phasing. No short cuts.

In the last month or so, the team has been conferring with experts to finalize the cross-laminated timber (CLT) design for Deborah’s Home. The design will have to accommodate for both the manufacturer’s CLT panel dimensions and for structural issues associated with the material. (Large panels of CLT are more efficient and cheaper with no cuts.) Recently, our great consultant Dan Wheeler helped the team break through a tough spot. They had planned a gabled roof but have since shifted the typology: the shed roof they are now designing is more conducive to the structural forces at play and works with the CLT panel dimensions. Engineering advisor Joe Burns is helping them address any outstanding structural issues, a critical step. The team’s resolve in working though the problem over time is impressive.

The team spent much of the summer working on the CLT Pod during the day and making progress on the home design in the evenings. (The Pod is a mini-me of the future house, Deborah’s Home, using the same material.) The team is only a few days away from finishing the Pod, and they will break ground on site of the home within the next couple weeks.

We’re about to hear the beautiful hum of construction, music to this hardworking team’s ears.