“Everybody deserves good design, whether they are rich, poor, black, white or green,” said Rural Studio director Andrew Freear in a PBS News Hour segment.
Auburn University’s Rural Studio, an extension of the institution’s architecture program, was initiated by D.K. Ruth and the late Samuel Mockbee, professors who believed good design should be accessible to people from all economic backgrounds. It offers hands-on training to students. These students live in Newburg, a city more than 100 miles away from Auburn University’s main campus. From Newburg, students disperse throughout a three-county region, designing and building projects. Since the Rural Studio began in 1993, students in the program have completed 200 projects, including public buildings and several single-family homes
