Seth McDowell Architect, pllc

Ad Hoc Shack #2 was part of a series of Design/Build projects that investigated the improvisational methods of construction common in the rural American South. The design process was inspired by the agrarian structures that are built and mended with local materials at hand. The material for the constructed shed was recycled from a nearby corn crib that had begun to collapse. The corn crib was carefully disassembled, documented, re-milled, and reconstructed. Yet for the reconstruction, the frame and cladding are treated as bricks and stacked, forming load-bearing walls at the parameter. Openings were created in the stacking process to allow for natural ventilation. The new shed functions as a tool and storage shed. 

Ad Hoc Shacks are structures of radical reconstruction.  This involves the relocating and reimagining of agrarian forms for architecture. It is an investigation of the improvisational methods of construction that exist in the rural south region of the US. Fieldwork involves re-constructing a series of agrarian ruins - yet with new assembly methods. No drawings are created for the built projects. Instead, strategies are created to allow design to occur during construction. Primary building materials are recycled from abandoned or collapsed agrarian structures. 

These structures are simultaneously ruins and new constructions.  They sit in the rural landscape like an English folly and serve primitive functions like keeping wood or tools dry.