Citizen Architect (aka Snakebit) is a documentary film on the architect Samuel Mockbee (1944-2001) and the radical educational design/build program known as the Rural Studio in Hale County, Alabama. The film explores the effort by Mockbee to inject architecture's future practitioners with the knowledge and passion to improve their community's quality of life by putting compassion and ethical responsibilities at the heart of their design. The students design homes and neighborhood buildings that reflect the needs
and wants of their underserved clients—many of whom don’t have indoor plumbing or a proper roof over their heads. With minimal funding, the students build their designs, relying mostly on donated and locally salvaged materials that keep costs low and the environmental impact negligible. The result is graceful, clever and often
stunning.
