Rural Studio

Samuel Mockbee and an architecture of decency

For almost ten years, Samuel Mockbee, a recent MacArthur Grant recipient, and his architecture students at Auburn University have been designing and building striking houses and community buildings for impoverished residents of Alabama's Hale County. Using salvaged lumber and bricks, discarded tires, hay and waste cardboard bales, concrete rubble, colored bottles, and old license plates, they create inexpensive buildings that bear the trademark of Mockbee's work, which he describes as "contemporary modernism grounded in Southern culture."

More than a dozen projects

The Studio has completed more than a dozen projects, including the Bryant "Hay Bale" House, Harris "Butterfly" House, Yancey Chapel, Akron Chapel, Children's Center, H.E.R.O. Playground, Lewis House, Super Sheds and Pods, Spencer House addition, Farmer's Market, Mason's Bend Community Center, Goat House, and Shannon-Dutley House. These buildings, along with the incredible story of the Rural Studio, the people who live there, and Mockbee and his student architects, are detailed in this colorful book, the first on the subject. "I tell my students, it's got to be warm, dry, and noble", said Samuel Mockbee.

Andrea Oppenheimer Dean

Andrea Oppenheimer Dean is former Executive Editor of Architecture Magazine and a published author. She lives in Washington, D.C. Timothy Hursley is an architectural photographer who regularly contributes to the international press. He lives in Little Rock, AR.

Rural Studio

Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; ISBN: 1568982925

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