Lucy House - Rural Studio
Location: Masons Bend, Alabama
Program: Single Family House
Status: Completed, 2002

In 2001 James Michael Tate participated in the Rural Studio Outreach Program. The program brought seven architecture students from different universities around the world to work on a Rural Studio project under the direction of Samuel Mockbee. The project that year was sponsored by Interface, the world’s largest manufacture of carpet tiles.

The house is organized around three parts: a ground level main house, a lofted master bedroom, and a sunken den/tornado shelter. The perimeter walls of the main house are made from 72,000 reclaimed carpet tiles that are held in compression by a ring beam. The lofted bedroom, also commonly referred to by Mockbee as the “wacked out piece,” also serves as a spiritual space for the matriarch of the house.

Project Team: Floris Keverling Buisman, Ben Cannard, Phillip Crosscup, Kerry Larkin, Marie Richard, James Michael Tate, Keith Zawistowski