The Future is Bright at the Urban Studio

From partnerships and internships to presentations and parking studies, our students immersed themselves in developing ideas for both urban areas and smaller Alabama cities.

DesignAlabama Partnership

Our third- and fifth-year students traveled to Abbeville in the fall for our annual DesignAlabama charrette. Students joined professionals to iterate on designs for a local history museum and work through a master plan for the town. Third-year student Abby Best won the Pella Award for her concept for the new museum. The team at Urban Studio will continue working with The Jimmy Rane Foundation in the future on the town’s next steps for their redevelopment projects.

Our fall project with DesignAlabama will take place in September. The upcoming 2024 DesignPlace charrette will find our students in Harpersville. Located in Shelby County, Harpersville is part of a growing suburban area on the Highway 280 artery between Birmingham and Auburn. The town is currently home to a few smaller attractions like the Morgan Creek Winery and is poised for growth alongside Chelsea, Calera and other towns in the area.

Parking in Birmingham—From Plans to Presentations

The fifth years tackled Birmingham’s “parking problem.” Their Birmingham Parking Study presentation was a comprehensive look at parking in Birmingham’s downtown area and focused on the current and future state of parking as part of the city’s master plan. They worked with their professors and the city’s planning department to understand the current parking situation and the plans for parking in the future.

Over the summer, the City of Birmingham’s new Deputy Director of the Department of Transportation was recently announced to be overseeing a 12-step parking reform plan for the city. To start, the regulations for minimum parking have already been updated to remove parking requirements and favor pedestrian development in the city.

For the first time, an abstract for our students’ work was submitted to present at an international conference. The students’ work on the Birmingham Parking Study was accepted and our graduating fifth years presented at the International Making Cities Livable Conference (IMCL). The IMCL is a beacon for professionals, scholars and activists dedicated to creating healthier, inclusive and more sustainable cities. The conference took place during the weekend of April 28, and the students delivered a summary of both the parking study and how their individual thesis work expanded on different aspects of the study.

Preparing for their Futures

In addition to their experience at IMCL, our 2024 graduating fifth years interacted with local professionals during their thesis presentations. The Birmingham architecture community comes together to participate in the Urban Studio thesis juries, many of whom are Auburn and Urban Studio graduates. Our jury members are always enthusiastic to work with students and give back to the Urban Studio through this volunteer work.

During their final semester, fifth year students intern at local architecture firms. This year, ArchitectureWorks, Krumdieck A+I, Nequette Architecture and Design, Pfeffer Torode Architecture and Williams Blackstock Architects hosted students as they prepared for graduation. Two of our 2024 graduates remained in Birmingham and are working at Williams Blackstock Architects and Poole & Co Architects. The other three found opportunities in North Carolina, Georgia and South Alabama.

Summer in the City

Usually, life at Urban Studio slows down during the summer. However, this summer was different. Construction on the former Hood-McPherson Building was completed and the community came together for the grand opening of the new Auburn in Birmingham campus—the new home of Urban Studio, the Harbert College of Business and the Provost Office. Later in the summer an open house was held for the local building community to visit the renovated space and help welcome the new CADC Dean, Dawn Finley.

Urban Studio also hosted the ARIA summer thesis seminar’s “Inside Birmingham” portion of their summer studies. The focus of this year’s summer thesis was on one of the few surviving historic Black Business Districts in the Southeast, Birmingham’s Fourth Avenue North Business District. Tasked with designing a restaurant space in an historic building, visits to local restaurants were integral to their summer thesis projects. Besides the restaurants, students met with local design professionals and experienced local landmarks and adaptive reuse projects to better understand the concepts and contexts needed to bring their visions to life.

What’s Next?

For the first official year in the new Urban Studio, third- and fifth-year students will be documenting Birmingham’s historic neighborhoods to produce a housing study. The students’ focus area will be to ideate on redevelopment activities at the 21^st and 22^nd Street viaducts. The site is part of an historic area along one of the first developed commercial and warehouse districts in Birmingham, as well as the first designated historic district in the state, Morris Avenue. Due to its proximity to the railroad, the area served as a food distribution hub and is one of the best-preserved Victorian districts in the city.

A major focal point in the Urban Studio’s Cheryl E. Morgan Design Lab will be an interactive city model future students will be able to use and update as changes take place in Birmingham. This fall, students will begin construction on the model sections as they become part of the working model of Birmingham.

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