2016 AIA Birmingham Design Awards

We had a great evening representing the firm at the 2016 AIA Birmingham Design Awards, taking home awards for Alagasco Metro and Cahaba Brewing projects.

 

Cahaba Brewing Company

  • Merit Award

A controlled material palette and priority on craft was leveraged in the creation of a memorable atmosphere unique among Alabama’s breweries. Custom tables and chairs made from reclaimed wood provide customers with various seating options and breaks up the expansive space. The overhead doors are often opened in the evenings allowing patrons to overflow onto the patio. Use of natural light from the monitor windows gives the reclaimed pine walls a radiance in the afternoons, highlights the existing steel structure all while providing the brewers and customers with adequate light.

 

Alagasco Metro Operations Center

  • Merit Award

Located in the urban center of Birmingham, this facility serves as Alagasco’s primary service center. The three main buildings, two office buildings and a garage totaling +/-37,000 SF, as well as the outbuildings, including a truck wash, fuel island, and several sheds, were constructed using pre-engineered metal building structures. The main building construction include concrete slabs on grade, architectural metal panels, brick veneer, standing seam metal roofs, and storefront. A fence is provided around the entire campus for security, which includes a combination of masonry fencing, prefinished aluminum fencing, and vinyl coated chain link fencing.

Mountain Brook Municipal Complex

Design Alabama has a wonderful article on the recently completed Mountain Brook Municipal Complex. Enjoy!

MtnBrookMunicipalComplex-35.jpg
A municipal building is often a monolithic structure that stands out instead of harmonizing with its surroundings. But that’s not the case with the two-story Mountain Brook Municipal Complex located in leafy Crestline Village.
— Design Alabama
 

Mountain Brook Municipal Complex

Nestled among existing oak trees, the new Mountain Brook Municipal Complex occupies the same site as the original Mountain Brook City Hall built in 1967. Designed as the new home for the community’s city council, mayor’s office, city manager and fire and police departments, the 53,000-square-foot complex provides much needed additional space and facility upgrades – including a 60-space, underground parking deck – while complementing the character and design elements, such as red brick with limestone trim and Tudor-style details, of the community village where is sits.

AIA National Conference Recap

The AIA National Conference rolled into Philadelphia two weeks ago, bringing together diversity of creative fields to share how design is shaping our collective future. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the incredible comedian known for her role on Seinfeld and more recently Veep, spoke to her approach to acting through innovation, disruption, and risk-taking. Neri Oxman helmed the second keynote, and through her MIT-based research at the intersection of architecture, fashion, 3D fabrication and ecology, delivered a presentation which was equal parts technical marvel and vibrant awe, and gave attendees a glimpse of the bleeding-edge of contemporary design. Rem Koolhaas, in his interview with Harvard Graduate School of Design dean Mohsen Mostafavi, made a case for a diversity of approaches when creating architecture.

Alabama was proudly showcased twice at the keynotes before more than 8,000 architects, once for the tornado relief project hosted by the AU Urban Studio here in Birmingham, and again for the amazing work Rural Studio has created in Hale County. It was amazing to witness our state put on stage and as an example of architectural design having a positive impact in our communities.

The AIA presents a short documentary film on Rural Studio, Auburn University's community-oriented, design-build program dedicated to improving the western Alabama region with good design. The Rural Studio film launches the 2016 Film Challenge, inviting filmmakers and architects to team up and tell stories of how architecture is solving a problem facing us today in communities, big or small, across the country.

Fuller Hanan, a former Auburn student, explains how her participation in the Birmingham R/UDAT has impacted her career and understanding of how architecture can contribute to communities.

This is but a taste of the offerings at AIA Philadelphia – from the numerous CEU sessions covering a remarkable variety of topics, to the enormous trade show, and my personal favorite: the Emerging Professionals party, featuring hundreds of young designers dancing at the feet of Benjamin Franklin. I think the statesman would have approved.