Through his almost two decades of leadership at Auburn University’s Rural Studio, Andrew Freear has created a complex and challenging understanding of what architecture can be and can do. Rural Studio engages some of the most difficult questions in our society—systemic racism, poverty, the degradation of the rural landscape—and shows how architecture can be an instrument of care, bringing together science, technology, craft, and art to support and give form to our common humanity. Andrew Freear challenges students to contribute to a better society, by creating truly exceptional buildings and places in deep collaboration with the diverse local community. Through its civic projects, new approaches to housing, restorative food systems, and materials research, Rural Studio has become an exemplary model of architectural education. It defines through its work what every architect, and every citizen, must embrace: the ethical responsibility for the social, political, and environmental consequences of their actions in the world.

I like to be a champion for the local….Rural challenges are as interesting as urban challenges, and I think that these challenges deserve everyone’s attention. I hope that the rural isn’t just seen as an extraction landscape, but as a place of opportunity and potential like we’ve seen it….

I do hope that the underlying message of the award is heard: that place really does matter and that everyone, both rich and poor, deserves the benefit of good, dignified, equitable design, whether they can afford it or not.