Re-Barn concept aims to save Maryland's endangered tobacco barns

(gizmag) With its Re-Barn concept, architectural planning consultancy autotroph has come up with a strategy to preserve not just one building, but a whole family: the endangered tobacco barn of Southern Maryland. The Re-Barn idea would see tobacco burns renovated into family homes, while maintaining their potential to run a working farm.
The need for to preserve tobacco barns stems from the Maryland Assembly passing the Tobacco Crop Conversion Program in 2001. The program effectively saw the state buy out tobacco farmers in an attempt to discourage cultivation of the crop. While it's impossible to quantify the precise number of tobacco barns that fell into immediate disuse, the fact that about 1000 farmers took the deal gives you some idea: abandoned tobacco barns number in the hundreds. The buildings which were once essential for air-curing Maryland's most lucrative cash crop became, in many cases, simply surplus to requirement. Continued