Krumdieck Named Director of the College of Architecture, Design and Construction’s Urban Studio

Vini Nathan, Dean and McWhorter Endowed Chair in the College of Architecture Design and Construction, is pleased to announce that Alex Krumdieck has been named Associate Clinical Professor of Practice and Director of the Urban Studio in Birmingham, AL effective June 1.

“The Urban Studio is a center of consequence that impacts the built environment in the Birmingham area and across the state of Alabama,” says Nathan. “Award winning architect, Alex Krumdieck, brings deep and broad professional experience to the role of leading our academic, scholarly, and community engagement efforts through the Urban Studio. He will build on a legacy of impact through meaningful, synergistic partners with the design professions and communities, while further expanding our efforts in multiple allied dimensions.”

Krumdieck is principal in the Birmingham-based architecture and interior design firm Krumdieck A+I Design, which has earned numerous awards including recognition by the AIA and the IIDA. He earned a Bachelor of Architecture from Auburn University and a Master of Architecture from Georgia Tech. He has served as an adjunct instructor several times in recent years, including teaching roles on Auburn’s main campus and at the Urban Studio. Recently, Krumdieck designed the newly opened Alabama Center for Architecture in Birmingham. He has served as Urban Studio’s interim director since 2014.

Over the past three years, Krumdieck has overseen Urban Studio’s move to its new location on the corner of 20th Street and 3rd Avenue North and the ongoing renovations. This new location has put Urban Studio and its students in the center of the action to develop urban design plans for areas such as the Innovation District in downtown Birmingham, the Morris Avenue area, and the zipper that connects Parkside and Lakeview.

As director, Krumdieck will continue to lead the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture’s teaching team in Birmingham, focusing on the Fifth-year architecture students who choose the Urban Studio as the venue of their final year of study along with Third-year students who choose to come to the Urban Studio for a semester. In addition to his teaching role, Krumdieck coordinates the outreach and community-based activities of the Urban Studio and serves as a liaison to other APLA and CADC faculty engaged in these activities in Birmingham.

“I look forward to the opportunity to work with the APLA faculty and to build on Urban Studio’s legacy and guide its growth as it moves into its next chapter,” says Krumdieck.

Urban Studio is in its third decade as a teaching and outreach program of Auburn’s College of Architecture, Design and Construction. Students are immersed in the extraordinarily rich “laboratory” of downtown Birmingham and work includes professional seminars and studio design projects that typically focus on community development and urban planning.