BY: ALEX BROWN

One summer weekend in 1991, Steve and Marie Nygren took their children to the Georgia woods on the outskirts of Atlanta, a broad growth of mossy poplars and cedar stretching through the fat stink of red soil and old growth known as Chattahoochee Hill Country. It might have been his children’s last chance to see the land, Nygren worried, before developers sniffed it out and laid siege with smoking Bobcats and brick-cutters and cranes to re-fit the landscape for high-rises and condo buildings. It was a vision of pure terror for an old hippy-type like Nygren, not the world he desired for his kids, and not one he would give into without a fight. If something was going to change, he decided it would need to start in his own backyard. So he began the process of moving his backyard into the woods.

In these woods Nygren envisioned a community, one simple and intuitive, designed to maintain the rural plots and uphold the cultural food-groups: art, agriculture, health and education.

Photo by: Jessica Ashley

In these woods Nygren envisioned a community, one simple and intuitive, designed to maintain the rural plots and uphold the cultural food-groups: art, agriculture, health and education. In the decades that followed, students of Auburn University’s architectural undergraduate program, Rural Studio, would share this vision with one small stipulation: the houses come at $20,000 a piece.

If something was going to change, he decided it would need to start in his own backyard. So he began the process of moving his backyard into the woods.

Photo By: Jessica Ashley

But before Rural Studio could give life to their vision, Nygren would have to lay the foundation of his own. It wasn’t long before he moved into the all-but-vacant land of Serenbe, where the first house was put up in 2004. Next door in Alabama, the following year, Rural Studio would take the first steps towards completing their first $20,000 home. Soon an entire community unraveled from Steve’s idealist and some-might-say radical philosophies. His mission was to “develop without destroying the natural landscape,” as he mentions on their website, and so he began to erect a township where people and nature could thrive together.

They wanted to make the community accessible to those living below the poverty line.

Photo By: Jessica Ashley

To accomplish these goals, the Rural Studio team established a number of innovative building techniques that permit a lower cost with higher functionality.

Photo By: Jessica Ashley

If one were to visit today the first thinga they might notice are the long spider-webbed pathways extending through the forest around which the town is built, connecting homes to shops through foot-trails, flanking streams, waterfalls and dense forest. The road connecting one’s doorstep to grocery store is one of soil rather than blacktop, offering ten minutes of fresh air and overhanging trees rather than exhaust fumes and imposing billboards. Most interestingly, perhaps, is that 70 per cent of the landscape is edible. “There are blueberries at every crosswalk,” Nygren says. If there’s one thing that can attract foreign progressives, it’s blueberries.

The township would soon advance to the status of a “national and international model,” receiving a multitude of awards including the Urban Land Institute Inaugural Sustainability Award, the Atlanta Regional Commission Development of Excellence, and EarthCraft naming Serenbe the “Development of the Year.”

The road connecting one’s doorstep to grocery store is one of soil rather than blacktop, offering ten minutes of fresh air and overhanging trees rather than exhaust fumes and imposing billboards.

Photo By: Jessica Ashley

Photo By: Jessica Ashley

Photo by: Jessica Ashley

But as Rural Studio saw it, with houses at about half-a-million a pop, it was still a wealthy American’s dream. They wanted to make the community accessible to those living below the poverty line. So in January, Nygren gave the Studio his blessing to build their first real housing project, erecting two homes from a mere $14,000 of building materials each.

According to associate director, Rusty Smith, Rural Studio is still “trying to find out the best practice of getting this house out into the public’s hands,” as he tells Fast Coexist. It’s a tricky business: constructing a home attractive enough to the average buyer, while keeping the cost at about 4 per cent of the price of an average home, while still managing to pay the labourers a fair wage.

To accomplish these goals, the Rural Studio team established a number of innovative building techniques that permit a lower cost with higher functionality—for example, using cantilevers to support the houses foundation. The only problem being that some of these building techniques are nearly too innovative, throwing off the town’s officials who need explanations and careful reassuring that the houses meet safety regulations (they do). Other issues the team ran into were that the houses were not large enough to meet zoning guidelines, and the inability to secure a mortgage for such a cheap residence.

Most interestingly, perhaps, is that 70 per cent of the landscape is edible. “There are blueberries at every crosswalk,” Nygren says.

Photo By: Jessica Ashley

One of the benefits of working with the township of Serenbe is that the Rural Studio team is given leeway to work through these systemic issues. Though two of Rural Studio’s signature homes have already been erected in Serenbe, the team is still working to perfect their process, as currently, in order to build the home while providing adequate building jobs, the homes would surpass $20,000, even if not by a substantial margin. In the meantime, however, Smith contends that if “someone wants to put it together themselves, it would cost less than $20,000,” he tells Fast Coexist.

As Rural Studio continues to tinker with their design, the future looks bright for the community of Serenbe, and soon, hopefully, the rest of America. The $20,000 homes—or slightly more if one were to pay for construction—will likely occupy an increasing number of housing plots. When out-of-towners drive by in their Chevys and Hondas and Toyotas they might even lean out the window with gawking faces, explaining to their spouse how badly they would love to live there one day (but alas they can’t afford it), not realizing that the houses they’re looking at cost just a smidgen more than the car they’re driving.

For Rural Studio, this is the future and they’re already way “behind schedule.” For Nygren and the rest of Serenbe, this too is the future—just with a few more blueberry bushes involved.

Image sources: jessicaashleyphoto.com, atlantamagazine.com