Elevate Something Ordinary to Something Extraordinary.

At first, Mockbee planned to stay only a year, in large part because of his family. "But once we did the first year, I realized that I had to stay the second," he says. "And then I realized that I had to see the thing through. The only way to be successful is to make sure you're successful, and you have to stay out on the fringes for that. You've got to leave your family and your home and go to war. You can't do it from your den at home." Along with being apart from his family, Mockbee has also made financial sacrifices. Until receiving the MacArthur fellowship, Mockbee says that he had "lived hand-to-mouth my entire professional life."

Designing Relationships

Once they were in place in Hale County, Mockbee and his students started small. They repaired trailer homes -- particularly for families with children, for the elderly, and for the disabled -- while they earned the trust of the locals and while they familiarized themselves with the community. "You can't just blow in," Mockbee says. "You don't have to be from here, but you do have to understand the community in which you're going to build. I'm not saying that I couldn't build a house in Spokane, Washington. I would love to do one there. But I probably could do a better one here, because I understand the people and the place."

From the Department of Human Resources in Hale County, Mockbee obtained names of families who were appropriate candidates for both smaller repairs and entire houses. "That office not only introduced us but also vouched for the legitimacy of what we were doing," Mockbee says. "There is a distrust that has to do with the culture of the South. You got a white man from Mississippi named Sambo walking in and saying, 'I want to build you a house. It's not going to cost you anything, and we're not trying to change you. We just want to help you out.' Well, you'd be apprehensive too!"

These days, the Rural Studio is established enough that some people actually come to Mockbee to request houses. (Many of those people, however, do not truly need the Rural Studio's help and are simply hoping for a freebie -- though Mockbee generously observes, "I understand that. Hell, I want to build me something.") But persuading community members to work with the studio wasn't always as easy as it is now. One family that needed help was familiar to Mockbee by reputation -- for rough behavior and for squalid living conditions. "I didn't want to deal with them," Mockbee says. "But the students wanted to meet everybody so they could pick the family they would work for. We drove down there in a couple of cars. I said, 'Y'all stay right here. I better go knock on this door myself.' So I did, and the man in the family was sitting on the porch. I told him who I was, and I said the social workers were worried about them and thought they'd benefit from us building them a house. He said, 'No, I don't think I'll take one of those today' -- as if I was selling Amway."

Mockbee was challenged, rather than discouraged, by the man's lack of interest. "I said, 'Wait a minute, it won't cost you anything.' I wanted him to understand what he was turning down." The man didn't relent right then, but Mockbee had planted the idea, and he planned to return. Mockbee went back to the car, where the students were waiting. "We started driving and got about 100 yards down the road," he says. "Then I got out of the car and got all the students out and said, 'I'm going to tell you something. There is not an architecture agency on the planet that would build a house for that family. They're almost untouchables. If y'all pick them, you would really be doing something wonderful.' "

The students did pick that family, and, with just a bit more persuasion, the man agreed to let them build the house. "We started doing some designs, and we'd show them to him and his wife," Mockbee says. "He started coming around, and then it was like night and day. When we began building, he enjoyed it, she enjoyed it; he enjoyed watching the students and helping them. The chemistry between the students and the family all happened the way that I always hope it will and know it will."

Indeed, the relationships that develop between students and community members are perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Rural Studio. The students, whom Mockbee has referred to as "my little baby chicks," are often quite sheltered. "They're bright, but they're young," Mockbee says. "They're right out of the mall, and all of a sudden they find themselves in Hale County, Alabama." That can mean, as it did one day last summer, that those students are laying concrete in 105-degree heat. Yet the students invariably rise to the challenge. "These affluent students are working their butts off in order to impress and win the respect of the poorest people in America," Mockbee says. "And the reason they want to win that respect is that there is a certain integrity, a certain honesty these families have. They're wonderful families."