Andrew Freear

Director, Rural Studio, Auburn University

Thursday, March 1, 2007
6:30 P.M. - Lawrence J. Plym Auditorium
Temple Hoyne Buell Hall

Max Abramovitz Distinguished Lecture in conjunction with the Planning Institute, the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, the College of Fine and Applied Arts Lorado Taft Lectureship on Art, and the Center for Advanced Study

Andrew Freear, from Yorkshire, England, is Associate Professor at Auburn University Rural Studio. With the untimely death of Samuel Mockbee, Andrew is now the Co-Director of the Rural Studio in Newbern, Alabama.

Educated at the Polytechnic of Central London and the Architectural Association, London, England, he has practiced extensively in London and Chicago, and taught design studio for 5 years at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Having moved to Alabama six years ago, he now lives in the small rural community of Newbern, West Alabama where his main role, aside from Directing the Rural Studio is thesis project advisor to fifth-year undergraduate students and their building projects.

The Rural Studio is a hands-on architectural pedagogy that not only teaches students to design and build charity homes and community projects, but also improves the living conditions in rural west Alabama.

The focus of the student’s thesis year is a community-based project and sustainable materials research. Working in small teams, the student’s experience the Arts & Crafts “hands-on” building tradition, work directly with the community, and have the added dilemma of negotiating designs and procedures with their team-mates. Typically in teams of 3 or 4, the students conceive of the project and program, raise funds, write grants, make community presentations, and design and build the projects from foundation to roof. Projects have ranged from baseball fields, community centers to a house made of cardboard.

Andrew has recently designed, supervised and built Rural Studio exhibits in Chicago, Cincinnati, at the Whitney Biennial in New York, Vienna Austria, and Barcelona Spain. The exhibition in Barcelona earned him two Chicago AIA design awards and he was finalist in the “Foment de las Arts Decorativas 2004 Architecture and Interior design awards”, one of the most prestigious awards in Spain and Portugal in art and design. A newly designed show has just finished traveling to Birmingham Museum of Art, Washington National Building Museum and Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.

His work at the Rural Studio has been published in Architectural Record, Architectural Review, Progressive Architecture, Dwell, Domus, Abitare and Lotus magazines; It is also covered extensively in two books by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean and Timothy Hursley.
He has lectured on the subject of the Rural Studio across the United States, and as far a field as Berlin, Barcelona and London. In contrast to this he is a member of the Board of the Rural Heritage Foundation in Thomaston Alabama, the Perry Lakes Board Marion Alabama, and of the Newbern Volunteer Fire Department in Newbern Alabama. He was recently made an honorary Citizen of Marion Alabama for his work on the Perry Lakes Park Project.