January 14, 2008- January 18, 2008

Monday: Rural Studio Spring 08 members are presented with the task to continue restoring and repositioning Cahawba’s St. Luke’s Episcopal Church to its original site, the first capital of Alabama. Spring 08 members then divided into teams: Mind Bullitz, Newbern Newbs, and Team Roadkill (Zane Morgan; Facilitator, Heather Baber; Timekeeper, Meghan Bullard; Wildcard, David Frazier: Reporter, and Delvin Stephens; Recorder).

Wednesday & Tuesday: On Tuesday we toured West Alabama for the many fantastic rural studio projects completed by past studios. The three teams of students were brought up to date on the status of the restoration of the church and were oriented with the site.

·  Task 1: Team Roadkill was positioned on the Eastern side and placed two single-levels of scaffolding around the entrance.

· Task 2: Roadkill analyzed the east and north wood members to determine which members were properly tagged and in good standing.

· Task 3: The studio discussed and organized rainy day assignments; restoring the windows and doors of the church, but most importantly THOSE ARCHES! ! ! !

Team Learning Objectives:

Improve communication skills

Develop the ability to work with others

As a team, we found that setting up the scaffolding would not have been as easy if there was a lack in communication amongst team members. Setting up the scaffolding required that holes be dug so that the scaffolding would be at the proper height. Without team communication and cooperation the task would not have been completed properly.

                It seems like we just moved in to our Newbern dwellings yesterday, yet we’re already at the end of our second week of Rural Studio.  The first couple weeks have been full of tours, rain, and excitement of every kind.  Tuesday the 8^th marked the first day of the semester, which was when our convocation was held.  It was helpful to put names with the faces we’ll be seeing a lot of over the next few months, and to get some sense of what our semester holds for us.  Over the next few days, our studio instructors Jason and Natalie showed us the two sites where we Second Years would be spending the majority of our time, St. Luke’s Church at Old Cahawba and Perry Lakes, as well as some familiar Rural Studio landmarks around Greensboro.  We finished out our first week working with thesis and outreach students at different Rural Studio projects around the area for Neck Down, and we were able to accomplish a couple of weeks’ worth of work in those couple of days.

                This week we were able to actually begin working on the church at Cahawba.  We spent the beginning of our time constructing the scaffolding we would need to being working on the walls around the church (might I add, extremely precise and level scaffolds from one particular group). 

LEARNING OBJECTIVE g_ Develop a commitment to high quality, accurate work

Before breaking for lunch, we discussed a plan for discovering which pieces of wood would need to be replaced before we move forward on the walls.  We decided, with Jason’s help, that the best way to go about doing this would be to basically assemble the walls on the ground in a large field near the site.  This would prove to be no easy task, and Jason told us that nobody has done this with a building of this size before, so it was up to us to do it perfectly.  The rain put a damper on our second day of work, but we were able to plan out our rain days for the rest of the semester.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE d_ Develop ability to work with others

                Three major things we learned from our instructors on our tour of older Rural Studio projects are things we will have to consider both throughout this semester as well as for the rest of our architectural careers.  We have to build strong relationships with our clients, build structures for usefulness and functionality (i.e. don’t give people something they don’t want), and build to last.  There are too many potentially great Rural Studio projects that are falling apart because nobody uses them or takes care of them, and that’s a tradition we’re looking to change.

                All in all, our start at Rural Studio has us all very excited, and we’re looking forward to working hard and keeping up the standard of excellence that has been established over the past 15 years.