Affordable housing...

[erosvamp]

now there's something we all can get behind.



The Rural Studio is a design-build architecture studio run by Auburn University which aims to teach students about the social responsibilities of the profession of architecture while also providing safe, well-constructed and inspirational homes and buildings for poor communities in rural west Alabama, part of the so-called "Black Belt".

The Rural Studio has four main goals by teaching students through context-based learning, that is, actually living in and becoming part of the community and designing and building houses within the community.

1. To give students of the School of Architecture the opportunity to learn the critical skills of planning, designing, and building in a concrete, practical, and socially responsible manner.

2. To form leadership qualities in students by instilling the social ethics of professionalism, volunteerism, individual responsibility, and community service.

3. To help communities, through partnerships with the state and local welfare agencies, provide suitable and dignified housing.

4. To develop materials, methods, and technologies that will house the rural poor in dignity and mitigate the effects of poverty upon rural living conditions.

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Fire station


$20,000 house


More pictures at:
http://cadc.auburn.edu/rural-studio/default.aspx

[roadmissile]

Pretty interesting stuff, here in Colorado most of the design build projects seem focused on renewable energy, but there are some really interesting projects for providing off grid housing for reservations as well.

/RM

[Sisyphus]

What? No cardboard? Wtf?

[piccini9]

I wonder what the socio/economic/political environment was like when Bucky Fuller was doing his thing.

I know, use the Google...

[motorpsycho67]

My uncle taught music at Auburn for 30 years.

Good school.

[xaos]

i read bout this project (or one very,very similar) last year. this is an example of what architecture as a design philosophy & profession can do to help any community.

it's to bad that any building outside of the, so-called, "black belt" that looked like those would be out of the pricerange of any working slob, however responsible the building techniques.

[sun rat]

strange. not much in the way of windows.

[12ci]

windows are expensive

[roadmissile]

windows are expensive

Not to mention harder to insulate.

/RM