Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

For almost ten years, Samuel Mockbee, a recent MacArthur 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 that bear the trademark of Mockbee's work, which he describes as "contemporary modernism grounded in Southern culture."In a time of unexampled prosperity, when architectural attention focuses on big, glossy urban projects, the Rural Studio provides an alternative of substance. In addition to being a social welfare venture, the Rural Studio--"Taliesin South" as Mockbee calls it--is also an educational experiment and a prod to the architectural profession to act on its best instincts. In giving students hands-on experience in designing and building something real, it extends their education beyond paper architecture. And in scavenging and reusing a variety of unusual materials, it is a model of sustainable architecture. The work of Rural Studio has struck such a chord-both architecturally and socially--that it has been featured on Oprah, Nightline, and CBS News, as well as in Time and People magazines.The Studio has completed more than a dozen projects, including the Bryant "Hay Bale" House, Harris "Butterfly" House, Yancey Chapel, Akron Chapel, Children's Center, H.E.R.O. Playground, Lewis House, Super Sheds and Pods, Spencer House addition, Farmer's Market, Mason's Bend Community Center, Goat House, and Shannon-Dutley House. These buildings, along with the incredible story of the Rural Studio, the people who live there, and Mockbee and his student architects, are detailed in this colorful book, the first on the subject."I tell my students, it's got to be warm, dry, and noble"--Samuel Mockbee

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 1)
• Mason's Bend (p. 14)
• Bryant (Hay Bale) House (p. 16)
• Harris (Butterfly) House (p. 32)
• Mason's Bend Community Center (p. 48)
• Newbern (p. 64)
• Supershed and Pods (p. 70)
• Newbern Baseball Field (p. 84)
• Sawyerville (p. 94)
• Yancey Chapel (p. 96)
• Goat House (p. 106)
• Sanders-Dudley House (p. 116)
• Greensboro and Thomaston (p. 120)
• Hero Playground (p. 122)
• Hero Children's Center (p. 124)
• Thomaston Farmer's Market (p. 134)
• Akron (p. 138)
• Akron Pavilion (p. 140)
• Akron Boys and Girls Club (p. 144)
• Rural Studio at Work: Interviews with Students, a Teacher, and a Client (p. 154)
• In Praise of Shadows: The Rural Mythology of Samuel Mockbee (p. 162)
• Photographing Hale County (p. 172)
• Project Credits (p. 178)
• Bibliography (p. 183)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This book is a revelation. It displays, for the first time in book form, the accomplishments of one of the most celebrated architectural studios in America, the Rural Studio, led by Samuel Mockbee of the Auburn University School of Architecture. Mockbee ran this studio for ten years until his tragic death from leukemia last year at the age of 57, a year after winning a MacArthur genius award. His students and associates created some of the most interesting and innovative architecture in the United States by serving the humblest needs of some of the poorest people in the most neglected counties of Alabama and Mississippi. About a dozen houses, churches, playgrounds, pavilions, and community centers are represented here in elegant photographs by Hursley, the unofficial photographer of the studio, and in concentrated prose by Dean, a former executive editor of Architecture magazine. The book includes descriptions of each project, interviews with students and clients, instructive essays on key topics, and a complete bibliography of the Rural Studio. Recommended to studio art as well as architecture programs. Peter Kaufman, Boston Architectural Ctr. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

The genius of an architect who made beautiful and functional homes out of inexpensive materials is celebrated in Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency. The book showcases work the South Africa-born Mockbee (1944-2002) undertook in Hale County, Ala., where he recruited architecture students to help design and build free homes for impoverished residents. Andrea Oppenheimer Dean, a former executive editor at Architecture magazine, and photographer Timothy Hursley, an architectural photographer who has been documenting Rural Studio for nine years, present 132 color and 12 b&w photos of the warm, modern homes (which often incorporate recycled and natural materials like tires and hay bales) and discuss them with Mockbee, his students and the home owners. The work has been featured on Oprah, Nightline, CBS News and in Time and People. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Under the direction of architect Mockbee, the Rural Studio, a field program of Auburn University, has created some of the most remarkable buildings of the era. The clients are impoverished families and communities in the central South. With astoundingly low budgets, Auburn architecture students, guided by Mockbee and several colleagues, design and construct shelter that is desperately needed. This ongoing program of public service to the poor is unusual enough among design schools, but the work created in the process is of extraordinary freshness and vibrancy. In contrast to prevailing architectural tendencies, the buildings are not couched in theory nor are they drenched in self-referential obscurity. The sheer lyric beauty of these designs emanates from their occupants' needs and from the place, yet also transcends their immediate circumstances. Rural Studio is more than public service; it is a wake-up call to the profession to renew its sense of purpose. This book presents its subject well in concise, illuminating prose and in stunning color photographs. It is also a fitting tribute because of Mockbee's untimely death earlier this year. Anyone who believes architecture should be a thing of joy as well as utility should find Rural Studio a refreshing affirmation indeed. All levels. R. Longstreth George Washington University