I just found this link in my “drafts” folder from months ago. I had totally forgotten about this bizarre find at Jayson Home and Garden. Forget buying that shipping container pre-fab house or that hip vintage Airstream trailer for the backyard; apparently, a sheep shelter caravan is what it’s all about these days:

You may purchase the caravan here for $8295. Hey James, I think you need to step up your game and find Design Public some antique outhouses, igloos, arks, sweat tents or yurts made out of twigs!

I poke fun with love. I’m crazy about retail websites with rare finds. This framing model is one of the many unique objects in the Rare Finds section of Jayson Home and Garden, and it’s definitely on my wish list:

So is this Vintage Convent Photograph:

images from Jayson Home and Garden

I first heard of Yestermorrow Design/Build School via Karrie Jacobs’ The Perfect $100,000 House.*  It sounded so great to me, then I forgot all about it until I saw it mentioned in Metropolis recently. I used to know how to draft but I’ve always sucked in woodshop and I sure don’t know how to build – it sounds like a great experience – a diverse group hanging out at summer design/build camp in Vermont. During the courses, students learn all about creating their own space, how to render it as an architect would, and partake in building projects at the same time. There are 1-3 day workshops, 1 week courses, and 2 week courses. If you’ve ever dreamed about architecture or building and didn’t know where to start, this is a great place to dip in a toe before you take the plunge.*

Here’s their philosophy:

Yestermorrow’s courses are specifically designed to demystify the designing and building processes using hands-on, experiential learning to teach students the art and wisdom of good design and the skill and savvy of enduring craftsmanship as a single, integrated process.

This creative process offers students unique insight into the oftentimes disparate worlds of the architect and the builder. Architects are routinely trained without any building experience that might inform their designs, and builders are trained to execute without a sense of the overarching purpose or design of the project.

Combining design and building offers numerous advantages and promotes the creation of intentional and inspired buildings and communities that enhance our world. From the professional design/builder to the do-it-yourself design/build homeowner, every designer should know how to build and every builder should know how to design. This philosophy sets Yestermorrow apart from other educational institutions.

Something about their vibe reminds me of Sambo’s Rural Studio, probably because most of their built works benefit communities.

* I really enjoyed Jacobs’ book when I read it, it was a quest for a place to call home set in that American On the Road kind of format, which is ironic, but it works. I found myself longing for a few things: 1) PHOTOGRAPHS of the places she visited. The few sketches in the book were charming, but an architecture critic, no matter how good her written descriptions are, should know that her readers are thirsty for images 2) For Jacobs to repeat her journey in 2008. Prefab architecture has become much more prevalent and costs have gone way down in the few years since she started her research. At the time she wrote the book, she was on the cutting edge of the current prefab movement. 3) For Jacobs to actually (SPOILER ALERT!)  find the perfect $100,000 house and freaking buy it/build it and live in it already! Maybe it was the Keroac-ian love of the road that kept her from putting down roots.

Another note: After reading about her Yestermorrow experience, I was pretty shocked that someone who was such a well known architecture critic (NYTimes, Dwell, H&G…she rocks) didn’t even know how to draft or how to begin designing a space. With so many precedents in her brain to find inspiration from, she really didn’t even know where to begin. I know that’s the norm, that art critics aren’t Picasso, or music critics Stevie Wonder, but it still surprised me. On the flip side, a lot of architects can’t write or critique worth a damn and they seem completely unaware of this as they wax unpoetically in a bunch of archi-speak mumbo-jumbo. Anyway, then it hit me that the architecture critic knows how to EXPERIENCE and APPRECIATE the space, and that is what counts. Just sharing my catharsis with you – sometimes I’m a little slow to understand these things!

all photos from yestermorrow.org.

A few months ago, Andrew Garrison saw my post about Project Row House and sent me a copy of the documentary he directed called Third Ward TX. This is a project that is so genius and moving to me; I’ve been following its progress for years. If you’d like to catch up, you really need to screen this film. I’ve dreaded and thus procrastinated writing this review for months because I know that words can’t do it justice. The last time I was moved to tears by a project or an exhibit was Gee’s Bend Quilts. It doesn’t happen often to this old cynic!

In 1993, Rick Lowe founded Project Row House. He was struck by how much the dilapidated shotgun shacks in the city of Houston reminded him of John Biggers’ paintings. He calls the shotgun shack “a humble abode and a temple.” As Lowe and a group of artists renovated the homes, they created a community where artists-in-residence would come stay and exhibit. Thus, the artists engaged the community and brought attention to a place that had been abandoned by many. Once a neighborhood with a small town feel, the area had fallen on hard times.

The first major result of PRH was eight exhibition houses housing two different artist per year, with exhibitions and exhibitions in progress showing for six months a year. The doors are open for people to walk through. Exhibits range from portraits to this 2001 Walter Hood installation:

After reaching this success, Lowe realized it was only the tip of the iceberg in helping the community. Thus, The Young Mothers in Residency Program was born. Single mothers were able to live in housing that is part of the project, and they are aided by mentor moms. They live rent free for two years while completing educations. These families become part of a thriving community. The amount of dignity this effort brings to people seems too powerful to describe. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Rhea for leaving the following information in the comments section of the post about Samuel Mockbee:

There is an exhibition called Southern Exposure: Contemporary Regional Architecture which features the work of the Rural Studio at the Virginia Center for Architecture through June 8. It features the Yancey Chapel as well as several other projects. The exhibition also highlights the work of other contemporary architects practicing in the Regional style, including Marlon Blackwell, Frank Harmon, W.G. Clark, and the firms of Lake|Flato and Mack Scogin Merril Elam Architects

On Thursday, May 1, 2008, Jason Coomes, a faculty member of the Rural Studio, discusses the ongoing work of the studio.

The Virginia Center for Architecture is located in Richmond, Virginia. If you’d like more information, please visit www.virginiaarchitecture.org.

Also, I found that Rural Studio has fantastic blogs that feature current projects.  Check them out here.

photos are from the Rural Studio blogs 

I’ve been meaning to tell you about this great book my Mom brought me as a hostess gift about a year ago. It’s a monograph of the work of Samuel ‘Sambo’ Mockbee, appropriately titled Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency. I kept putting it off, because frankly, scanning stuff is a boring chore, plus, it’s really hard to pick just a few projects from this book. I doubt I can summarize it better than the book jacket:

For almost ten years, Samuel Mockbee, a recent MacArthur “genius 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 in a style Mockbee describes as ‘contemporary modernism grounded in Southern culture.’”

This is the first project from Sambo I remember seeing back in architecture school. It’s The Cardboard Pod and is made from baled sheets of corrugated wax-impregnated boards:

This is the incredible Yancey Chapel, built around an existing rusted trough and constructed from 1000 dirt-filled used tires:

This property near The Yancey Chapel is called The Goat House, a former shed for animals that Rural Studio originally planned as part of an artists’ colony. The colony never, um, colonized, and the building is now a residence. You see the Chapel aesthetic influence on the structure: Read the rest of this entry »

I am almost as obsessed with fashion magazines as I am with home magazines (it used to be the other way around). The delivery of the huge W every month is always exciting and this month it is incredible. I am so glad to see that some people are working hard to make sure the rest of us do not forget that New Orleans is still in dire straits. The April issue of W has an amazing 60-page spread of New Orleans shot by Bruce Weber. Since shotgun houses have been on my mind this week (and I’ll be sharing some more about some other shotgun houses next week), I thought I’d share this image with you today. So many houses like this one were lost in Katrina. Let’s make sure they are not erased.

To learn more about how to help rebuild the 9th Ward, check out The Make It Right Foundation. This is a really cool project that deserves its own blog post, so I’ll tell you a little more about it next week. Explore the site – the pink project (the color is so very Christo) and the tour of the affordable housing is very cool and inspiring.

Also, on a disaster-related note, for those of you in the Atlanta area who would like to help out with the tornado recovery in Cabbagetown this weekend, click here for more information.

photos by Bruce Weber for W magazine