Saturday, May 27, 2006
AVE MARIA TOWN AND THE RURAL STUDIO
I came across the town of Ave Maria this week - a Catholic University town currently under construction in Florida bankrolled by Tom Monaghan, founder of Dominos Pizza. It aims to promote ‘traditional values’ and is essentially a medieval town planned with a church and large cross as its centre piece. The rest of the town is based on the principles of New Urbanism (think Prince Charles). The traditional values the town aims to promote include a ban on contraceptives and pornography and presumably, given the ‘in your face’ urban planning the centrality and authority of the church.The underlying feel of this place bugs me, not just from a New Urbanism point of view (Which does have some positive aspects to it but seems to invariably create gentrified, culturally flat ‘nice’ areas, the poor being pushed somewhere else - essentially a more palatable form of commercial development) but also because of the 'lets recreate a rosy coloured version of the past' approach. More comment here.
By way of contrast the Rural Studio, though a secular endeavour, works in a way that seems to have far more in common with Christian modes of thinking and action. Based in Alabama the studio is a fairly unique experiment in architectural education. A small cohort of students, generally drawn from ‘white, middle class’ type backgrounds, live amongst and develop projects from the needs of a very deprived, poor rural community. The nature of the projects varies: from community buildings through to the transformation of shack and trailer homes into more substantial dwellings. Budgets are minimal so materials are often gathered from the waste of others and used in innovative ways: old tyres as foundation formwork, car windscreens as roof tiles, carpet tiles as load bearing walls or bales of corrugated cardboard as building blocks.The resultant architecture is fascinating and transforming: tailored to the needs of a particular family or individual, environmentally aware through the re-use of materials, well crafted and well executed (even with inexperienced student builders). Beyond the physical aspects of the project two quite different social groups have found a mutually beneficial and respectful way of interacting, overcoming all kinds of prejudice in what could easily have become a very patronising exercise: The students experience of poverty and other social groups is broadened, they learn how to design for a real client and get to build the outcome (which is generally absent from most architectural education and can be very theory driven). Residents experience the transformation of their homes and community facilities and often seem surprised that someone would take an interest in them.
