In the United States, design-build programs are gaining ground not only as the way to run an architecture practice but as a method by which to teach the trade as well. Auburn University is a frontrunner of this school of thought. In 1993, the university launched the Auburn University Rural Studio, housed in the School of Architecture. The goal of the design-build program is to pass on professional design wisdom to the next generation of architects while developing strategies and making real efforts to improve the conditions of those living in rural Alabama.
Through its $20K House project, launched in 2004, Rural Studio has tasked students with designing and building prototype homes that could be replicated by local builders for $20,000. Why $20K? The project grew from the idea of building housing for low-income individuals who qualify for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 502 Guaranteed Rural Housing Loan, which the $20K House project directors were originally told was available starting at $20,000 though later learned it has no minimum. "What baffled us," says Rural Studio director Andrew Freear, "was that this money was available for people to build themselves a home but when push came to shove, there wasn’t an approved model for that minimum figure; the least expensive approved design required an $85,000 loan—-and that seemed pretty steep to us. The goal of the project is to clarify what one could achieve for $20,000."
In 2008, students Drew Coshow, Robert Douge, Abigail Grubb, and Steven Ward designed the Pattern Book House. The name was inspired by pattern books that were popular in the 1800s and outlined how to build design details, from columns to cornices. With such a book in hand, any construction worker equipped with basic building skills could construct facades straight out of ancient Rome or Greece, which were the styles most often offered in these publications. Similarly, the eventual goal of the $20K House program is that a small team of builders with printouts of one of the $20K House plans will be able to build a home in a few days without any additional assistance or instruction.
The first step to making plans for a $20K House available to builders is finding a design that work. Like the three $20K House projects built before theirs, the student team behind the Pattern Book House worked together to present a prototype of what such a home could look like. "There had been some community backlash to some of the previous prototypes," Grubb says. "We wanted to design something that the community would accept." To that end, they used a rain screen on the exterior walls to mimic siding on the area's traditional homes and chose cedar, as opposed to corrugated metal like other teams had done, so the locals could “compare it to a honey shed," Grubb adds.
Grubb and her classmates designed a double-roof system for improved ventilation. The exaggerated overhang protects the home and its residents from the elements.
The Pattern Book House is a modest 292 square feet in size. "We were going for quality over quantity," Grubb says. "We were able to make it feel bigger than it is with the vaulted ceiling and the up-lighting."
After the house was completed, Rural Studio sold it to a local resident who qualified for the 502 loan, though the cost to her was only that of the land. The 22-year-old nursing school graduate now calls the Pattern Book House "home."
Rural Studio’s hope is that within the next couple years, it’ll be able to begin testing some of the $20K House prototypes with local builders. "We’ll have a contractor take the model, build it, and tell us what was smart, how we could make it less expensive, and so on while at the same time employing people to build the homes, bringing money to the economy, and giving others affordable housing options," Freear says. And to make it easier, the students who were behind the Pattern Book House-—Coshow, Douge, Grubb, and Ward—-are hoping to soon complete a pattern book to accompany the design
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