This morning, we opened the Windsor Super Market for the first time ever!! Before and during construction on our Studio H-designed permanent pavilion structure, the market will be open every Saturday on the porch of the River Center. This morning, I showed up just before 9 to set up, and already, there were close to 50 people. Vendors were selling plants, greens, herbs, fresh shrimp, homemade granola and bread, quail and chicken eggs, and more. The Bertie Early College Ag School’s FFA Club was representing,

Thanks to the local hardware store, Bertie Builders Discount, we’ve ordered and now acquired our first batch of lumber for the farmers market structure. Two trailers full of 2×12′s showed up yesterday, pulling into our studio space during class. The 2×12′s will be sandwiched and bolted atop our in-shop deck and jig for the trusses, each truss forming one of the market bays (more on this jigging and assembly process next week). For now, we’ve got a lot of wood to unload…

For a while now, Jamesha has been wanting a bike. A purple bike. A purple bike to ride to the jobsite this summer. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been making her wish come true. Matt scavenged four broken bikes, which collectively make up one un-broken bike, and we taught Jamesha (and Kerron) the basics of bike repair and assembly. When Matt’s mom was here, she did a quick refresher on color theory and mixing colors, so that Jamesha could mix the “perfect purple” for

In December 2009, Matt and I did a graphic and communication campaign for Connect Bertie, an initiative to bring free broadband and desktop computers to many of the disconnected families in the Bertie County School District. As part of the branding campaign, we painted a 9-foot blue dot on the side of a building downtown (in December, up on a scissor lift, trying to keep our fingers from freezing off). Now a year and a half later, we have the opportunity to switch the Connect

As our end-of-year assignment, I asked students to write a personal essay about their experience, journey, challenges, favorite moments, biggest frustrations, and general lessons taken away from Studio H. Because this is Studio H’s first year, we want to learn exactly what our students identify as valuable, and to give them an opportunity to reflect, honestly, on what Studio H has meant to them. This assignment is also a clever way for us to provide our students with an end-of-year award for their completion of

Today we received our certificate from the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors: Project H Design is officially a commercial general contractor! We are the contractor and designer for the Windsor Super Market pavilion, and we break ground with our students in just 2 weeks, on June 1st. For upcoming years of Studio H, and other built projects, we’ll keep the license so that we can continue to build with our students.

Last week we finished up some remaining odd jobs and are now in full-fabrication mode for the farmers market structure. Because we have some legal limitations working with minors on a construction site (they are not allowed to use power tools if under age 18), we are doing as much as we can before the end of the school year to prefabricate components like the roof trusses. In order to fabricate the trusses, which will delineate the 8 bays and vendor stalls within the market

It’s on. The market opens in its pop-up location on the porch of the River Center (112 W. Water Street, Windsor, NC) on Saturday, May 21st, from 9-1. For those of you who frequently drive Hwy 17 from Williamston to Windsor, honk if you love fresh produce and fresh perspective.

Thanks to Sappi Fine Paper, whose Ideas That Matter grant program has helped us produce wonderful communication and marketing materials for the past two years, we now have a whole new round of Studio H and Windsor Super Market schwag! Most of the Super materials will be used to promote the opening of the market, including business cards and letterhead and stickers for the vendors and market managers. We also made a bunch of t-shirts and reusable grocery totes (thanks Baggu!), which we’ll probably donate

I’ve been asked many times in the past few months what we’ve had to do on an organizational level in order to make the summer build work. For all of you who are wondering, my life has consisted of seemingly non-stop legal, accounting, and structural maneuvering and adaptation in order to get all our proverbial ducks in a row to build. While we talk a lot about what goes on in our classroom, and how the curriculum supports the building project, I haven’t spoken as