Community-based architecture in rural New England

Design Assembly brings together a team of students, two architects, and a builder for eight intensive days to design, build, and install a project for a remote community in rural Maine, Vermont, or New Hampshire.  We think of it as architecture at its best. 

We live and work together for the week in rugged, often off-grid, rural locations.  From 2012 to 2015, the Design Assembly team was home-based on Bear Island in Maine, while executing projects for Hurricane Island, Islesboro Island, and North Haven Island communities in Penobscot Bay. In the summer of 2016, Design Assembly began operating on Hurricane Island, Maine, the former summer base camp of the Maine Outward Bound School and now the home of the Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership. Beginning in 2020, Design Assembly took place in Goshen, VT, and in 2023 the program moved to Squam Lake in New Hampshire. 

We intentionally conduct this program in rugged, remote settings—an hour’s boat-ride from the Maine coast, in the Green Mountains of Vermont, or in the White Mountains of New Hampshire—because it strips life down to the essentials. Everyone on the team has to be mindful of how we use limited resources. If we forget something, we can’t run to the store and get it. Everything needed on an island or in the mountains has to be transported there. Meals are made with food that is grown and harvested nearby, including local farms and surrounding waters. It is a self-sufficient and inter-dependent way of life, if only for a week.

No experience with design or construction is necessary.

Design Assembly is run by McLeod Architects. Student participants may consider the experience a professional externship with the firm, and AXP candidates can get their hours approved by a firm principal.

Follow Design Assembly on Instagram @design__assembly, visit the Facebook page, and watch a documentary of the 2014 Assembly.