Making Their Mark
By Jordan Carnell Email
Her journey began, winding down the seemingly never ending country roads passing one catfish pond after the other. She approached a sign reading “Welcome to Newbern.” As she pulled into the driveway, she knew she had arrived. There was an Auburn University flag welcoming them on the front porch.
The frigid air nipped at her face as she begins to unload her belongings into the pod that she would now call her home. “I realized someone forgot to turn on the heat. This is so typical I thought. What are we doing here?” she thought. Newbern, Ala., is a small in town in Hale County, population 231. It is in the heart of Alabama’s Black Belt, which consists of some of the poorest counties in the United States. According to the Census figures, the median household income is $20,000.
Secondly, it served to give Auburn University architecture students an opportunity to gain some valuable hands-on experience.
In Rural Studio’s self-defining statement, it states: “To most, the measure Rural Studio is in its built projects; but in reality, its success is measured by its effect upon the lives of the faculty, students, families, and communities it touches.” Rural Studio is about “sharing the sweat.”
“A lot of people out here don’t even qualify for a Habitat house because they are so poor,” says Fuller Sherrod, a current Rural Studio student.
Throughout the years, the students at Rural Studio have gotten a first hand look at the level of poverty in this rural area of Newbern. These students have not only had the opportunity to observe but truly make a difference in this town and its inhabitants’ lives.
“The area is very rural. It is hard to believe that it’s only 45 minutes away from our state capital,” Sherrod said. “The three adjectives I would use to describe this place are poor, simple and pure. It makes you think. You get to know not only the people who live here but the land,” Sherrod said.
Auburn University alumni Ben Mosley attended Rural Studio in the fall of 1994. “There was this process that once you passed Selma and got closer to Newbern you could start to feel a little more grounded. You mentally started to get more in touch with rural Alabama. It was such a calming effect because you thought that is where we belong, and that is where we were making a difference,” Mosley said.
Pam Chism is a veteran of community service in Newbern, and she has worked on several of Rural Studio’s projects. “A lot of these people would be better off pitching a tent outside. It is something that everyone needs to be aware of because it does exist and you don’t hear about these things,” said Chism.
The Projects:
While he was at Rural Studio, Mosley and his class did smaller scale projects to aid the community. They built a ramp for a handicapped women who had diabetes. Her family was having to carry her out of the house so she could get from place to place.
They fixed plumbing problems for one lady whose plumbing was so bad it was a wonder her kids did not fall through the floor. “We roofed a house for a lady who had one kid with Downs Syndrome, another about to graduate, the husband had brain cancer so he couldn’t work, and she had leukemia,” Mosley said.
This year’s Rural Studio participants are moving St. Luke’s Episcopal Church from its current location to it its original site. This is a part of the Save Old Cahawba campaign, Cahawba being the church’s original site.
The students this semester have had to tag each piece of wood in the church and take down the church piece by piece. They designed blueprints and a manual for the rebuilding process, which will be built by next semester’s students. They also researched and worked with community members to decide proper use of the church itself.
“There was no support from the ground. We don’t know how it was still standing,” Sherrod said. “I have been able to see how a building is built, the actual process, the history, and how they put it together. It’s a puzzle to us. We overlook the appreciation of how things were built back then.” By recycling and reusing materials, Rural Studio students must be creative. “They use everything they have. They utilize and salvage so many things. It is a big environmental thing. They try and use as many things as they can and incorporate them into what they do,” said Chism.
Chism recalls when she was working with Rural Studio in seeing pews from a church project being used in several ways throughout the community. “It was cool to see the church pews put to use in places like houses.”
Rural Studio allows students to get the full experience. They make a difference in and improve the community as well as the environment. They also get to build personal relationships with the people who live in the community.
“You really get to know the people. You go to the general store and talk to Henry, and get to know about his life. You know the lady with the peacocks that we hear at night,” said Sherrod. The community members of Newbern have welcomed Rural Studio participants with open arms. “They let you come on in. They are so nice and would give you the shirt off their back. It makes you wonder. All they ask for is a warm place to sleep and a front porch,” said Sherrod.
Sources:
http://cadc.auburn.edu/soa/rural-studio/home.htm
http://www.cadc.auburn.edu/soa/rural-studio/second-year/
Contacts:
Tom Carnell (615) 300- 8389
Pam Chism (205) 243-5031
Ben Mosley (615) 244-9622
Fuller Sherrod (205) 356-4781
Mary Jolley (205) 371-4454
Rural Studio was started in 1993 by Samuel “Sambo” Mockbee. It is located in Newbern, Alabama. Newbern is a small in town in Hale County, as of the 2000 census the population was 231. It is located in the region known as the Black Belt, which consists of some of the poorest counties in the United States. Throughout the years, many students, classmates and colleagues have by inspired by Mockbee. (http://cadc.auburn.edu/soa/rural-studio/mockbee.htm).
“Samuel "Sambo" Mockbee dedicated his life, as a teacher and as an architect, to the goal of providing "shelter for the soul". His inspirational and authentic architecture served to improve the lives of the most impoverished residents of rural Alabama through his work at Auburn University's Rural Studio. (http://cadc.auburn.edu/soa/rural-studio/mockbee.htm).
In 1991, Mockbee decided to leave his full time practice at Mockbee Coker Architects and began to teach at Auburn University’s School of Architecture, and it was during this time that the idea of Rural Studio ignited.
“He had a brilliant idea in establishing the Rural Studio. He set out to change the architecture education, and he succeeded magnificently. I have never met an architect who does not know about him and about his work” said Mary Jolley, a colleague and friend of Mockbee.
“Sambo had a great personality that drew people to him. He never met a stranger. He treated everyone with respect and dignity, and was an absolutely great teacher. Just ask anyone of the students who experienced rural studio!” Jolley said.
Mockbee focused on “context based learning” at Rural Studio. Students get the opportunity to gain hands on experience and in turn live and be a part of the community they are working on.
Students who have participated in Rural Studio have had the opportunity to experience the effects of Mockbee’s positive impact, not only in their own lives but in the lives of the community. “He believed students should immerse themselves in knowing their clients, even though they were poor and not formally educated. He believed that students would learn by being around poor people. By establishing Rural Studio in a relatively remote spot and many miles away from campus, he was able to create a unique learning environment. “There was no television, no telephones, no movies, no parties. They made their own entertainment and learned to enjoy the lives of people with whom they worked with on a day to day basis,” Jolley said.
She added, “His impact on the rural community was as great as his impact on the students. The poor people who benefited from the design and build program of the studio viewed him as being sent to them as a special messenger of God. For almost all of them, for the first time, they had a warm, dry place to live, and it was as if Sambo had created a miracle. It far exceeded anything they had every dreamed of.”
“I feel really fortunate to have gone to Rural Studio when Sambo was still very much involved in the day to day operation of the program. Hanging around Sambo gave me a good perspective on what it means to be an architect and being committed to the community you live in and providing community service,” Auburn University alum Ben Mosley said. Rural Studio’s mission is to allow the students who participate to use their education, creativity, design and building skills to work as citizens of a community addressing the community’s needs (http://cadc.auburn.edu/soa/rural-studio/home.htm). “Rural Studio does several things on several levels. It is a great contribution from the design community to be able to give to one of the poorest communities and societies while providing a creative avenue for students,” said Tom Carnell, former Auburn University graduate and classmate of Mockbee.
“He worked hard and was ambitious. He seemed passive but really wanted to accomplish things. He was laid back and friendly. Sambo didn’t have any enemies,” Carnell added.
The students who participate in Rural Studio get the opportunity to really get their hands dirty. They truly become one with community of Newbern by living and working with them on a day to day basis.
Mockbee was diagnosed with leukemia in 1998, and he passed away in 2001. However, Mockbee’s spirit and drive to make a difference rural Alabama persist today with the continuation of Rural Studio and the positive impact it makes in the community of Newbern.
The Rewards
“I took away what it really meant to struggle and truly be without lots of things. The folks there got along just fine and really appreciated what they have. Those things now are even more meaningful,” Mosley said. “It really put things in perspective. It showed the things that life can throw at you.”
Chism has seen this change through her experience in working side by side with the community as well as a handful of Auburn University students. “It is a different breed of students. They are doing it because they want to do it. They don’t have to. They have such a desire to help another person. I wish other young adults had that,” said Chism.
The change that students experience within creates a desire to maintain their selfless attitudes and their willingness to give through their professional field in the future. “I have seen so many students go and then come back. It is hard to see poverty all the time. They come back willing to come back and work on another project. It changes them. There is such a sense of community because they have so little they ban together. When the students experience this, it enriches their lives. The students get more out of it than the people they help.”
Sherrod has witnessed this in herself this semester. “It makes me want to work harder and one day give back to this community and support Rural Studio because I have seen what it is doing. It has renewed why I want to be an architect,” said Sherrod.
The inspiration and motivation has inspired several graduates to pursue community service and branch out in the areas they relocate to. “Hanging around Sambo gave me a good perspective on what it means to be an architect and being committed to the community you live in and providing community service,” said Mosley.
Mosley has used this drive to continue community service by organizing his fellow neighbors in a yearly service project repairing homes in the community he now lives. “Once you see what it can do, you want to go out and start it everywhere,” Chism said.
“I think they get to see first hand how a lot of this work is done in a way you don’t just see it by walking out on a job site. I think it is such a good experience,” said architect Carnell. “Not every student takes the advantage to be actually building something while they are in school, you can draw it all day long but until you can understand and think through how you put something together, have it stay together and having the added obligation to make architecture” said Mosley.
And the prominence of Rural Studio has certainly carried over in to the professional realm. “People that know about Auburn University architecture know about it because of Rural Studio. It is automatic connections,” said Sherrod.
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Last updated May 03, 2007