Samuel Mockbee
Soon after joining the faculty of Auburn, Mockbee established the Rural Studio with educator Dennis K. Ruth to provide practical training for architecture students in an environment where their efforts could address the problems of poverty and substandard housing in underserved areas of the southern United States.
Mockbee interned in Columbus, Georgia before returning to Mississippi in 1977, where he formed a partnership with his classmate and friend, Thomas Goodman.
Mockbee Coker's work emphasized local forms and materials, often with broadly-overhanging pitched roofs suited to the Mississippi and Alabama climate.
An initial project, executed for $7,000, drew Mockbee into a plan for three new houses under the auspices of Madison Countians Allied Against Poverty.
[4][5] Mockbee searched for a location in which to expand the program of working with architecture students to give them practical experience while actively addressing poverty and substandard housing.
It was the setting of James Agee and Walker Evans's 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which sought to document white rural poverty in prose and images.
[2] Hale County's lack of building code enforcement allowed Mockbee and his students to experiment with unusual and innovative materials and construction techniques, including the use of straw-bale construction and salvaged automobile windows, to create durable, well-designed structures at minimal cost, which would require documentation and certifications in a more structured regulatory environment.
[5] Students lived in a series of donated lodgings, eventually settling at Morrisette House in Newbern, Alabama.
[6] The Rural Studio program received acclaim for introducing students to the social responsibilities of architectural practice and for providing safe, well-constructed, and inspirational buildings to the communities of West Alabama.
[7] In 1993, Mockbee was awarded a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts to work toward the publication of his book, The Nurturing of Culture in the Rural South An Architectonic Documentary.
