The Tiny Alabama Towns With Internationally Acclaimed Architecture & Design
By Lisa Battles|Published November 13, 2023
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Lisa Battles
Author
Lisa has traveled the U.S. for over a decade, seeking out and sharing the stories of its most interesting places, people, and experiences. A journalism graduate of Auburn University, she has been a content strategist, editor, and writer for more than 25 years. Lisa has worked in community news, PR, and marketing with a focus on tourism, hospitality, and economic development. Besides following her curiosity around every corner, she's a devoted dog mom of two and advocate for animal welfare.
Anyone without context will be surprised at a look around the small Hale County communities of Greensboro and Newbern. The landscape reveals artfully designed homes, sleek community buildings, and soaring service structures.
Meanwhile, if you already know about Rural Studio, this innovative architecture in rural Alabama is no surprise. Two leaders within the Auburn University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture launched the educational program in 1993. Since then, it’s attracted international attention, including showings in a Victoria & Albert Exhibit in London, at MoMA in New York, and the Venice Biennale. The Japan Art Association awarded the program its Praemium Imperiale Grant for Young Artists in 2023.
Rural Studio began with residential projects, with its first being a small home for an elderly couple and their grandchildren. The program’s late co-founders, Professor Samuel Mockbee and Department Head D.K. Ruth chose Hale County for a reason. It had one of the highest poverty rates in Alabama and the nation. That unfortunate ranking persists as of 2022, with the county ranked fourth and its neighboring counties taking the top three.
To its credit, Rural Studio’s more than 1,200 students have built 220 residential and community-based projects for Hale County and its surrounding region over two decades.
One project in 2005, an animal shelter, helped the cash-strapped county to meet its legal obligation to provide residents with animal welfare services.
Also in Greensboro, at the Lions Park Playscape, kids have a ball amid a maze of galvanized drums. The Lions Park multi-phase project began in 2005.
In 2008, students began work on designing and building the park’s skatepark, a concessions stand, and a great lawn with several sports courts. In 2014, they added a Scout Hut for the community’s Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts.
Program leaders credit the long-term Lions Park project for building stronger government relationships. That led to more successful projects throughout the county, including a fire hall for Newbern.
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Newbern is the home base for the program, which invites approximately 50 students annually to live and work there. There, they began establishing the Rural Studio Farm in 2010. Its most visible structure is a 2,000-foot solar greenhouse.
The educational mission expanded with the farm’s development. Students learn how living off the land contributes to the bigger picture of sustainable, rural living.
Also in 2010, students gave one of the program’s earliest projects a refresh. The small Newbern Playground behind Newbern Mercantile consists of mostly common upcycled materials and needed updating after nine years.
Over the next two years, Rural Studio took on a big project for The Greensboro Boys & Girls Club. The organization serves school-age kids from kindergarten and up with after-school programs. It launched in November 2011 inside one of the city’s public buildings that was to be converted into a recreation center.
Back up in Greensboro, the leadership development group Horseshoe Farm Project tapped Rural Studio to create an inviting courtyard for its headquarters downtown. The building is an 1830s former hotel listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The students added landscaping toward the end of the courtyard. Close to the building, they installed galvanized metal vegetation screens that define the bounds of the space while allowing good visibility of the structure.
Meanwhile, meaningful work continues through Rural Studio’s residential projects, such as Patriece’s Home, which concluded in 2023. The project addressed rural residents’ need for more flexible space to adapt to changing family dynamics in multi-generational households.
These project-specific approaches complement the program’s more scaled efforts, such as the 20K Project it launched in 2004. That program aimed to develop quality-designed, efficient, durable, and affordable housing that could be built for $20,000. Now, Rural Studio works through its Front Porch Initiative to help connect people with affordable, dignified housing in rural communities throughout the greater region.
Rural Studio’s work commands the attention of some of the world’s most sophisticated design eyes, true. Even more important are the purpose, mission, and passion that drive its impact. While Mockbee passed in 2001 and Ruth in 2009, Director Andrew Freear carries their legacy brilliantly in the program’s current era. You can see many more project examples and details on the Rural Studio website and keep up with its latest news on the Rural Studio Facebook page.
If you’re interested in seeing some of this innovative architecture in rural Alabama firsthand, I recommend making it an overnighter or weekend. While this is one of Auburn University’s most standout programs, Hale County is closer to its cross-state rival college town, Tuscaloosa. Consider a stay at the city’s upscale boutique hotel, The Alamite, which opened in the fall of 2022. From Tuscaloosa, Hale County is about 25 miles south to the county seat of Greensboro, and another 10 south to Newbern. Moundville Archaeological Park is a worthwhile stop halfway there.
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