High Schools Survey:
Flagships for the Community
It was architect Neil Davis of Birmingham who gave this survey of high schools its title. When DesignAlabama sat down at the firm’s conference table in Birmingham to talk about renovations at McAdory High and plans for the new Trussville High, Davis said, “The design of high schools is so important because they serve as flagships for the community.” We feature five on the following pages.
The building housing McAdory High School has been playing that role since it was built in the late 1930s as a combined junior and senior high school for a then-isolated community in southwest Jefferson County. Its art-deco details were formed as part of the poured-in-place construction in a WPA project to create local jobs. Now the area is thriving with new development, and Davis Architects Inc. was commissioned to renovate and expand the school in keeping with the original. The result is splendid with original details preserved and extended.
Creating a new civic landmark for the City of Trussville northeast of Birmingham drove the Davis Architects’ design for Trussville High School, the first in a newly established local system. Located next to the headwaters of the Cahaba River, the four-story building itself is placed to protect the watershed with classroom wings and a full-height atrium looking out at the river’s wooded edge. Native stone and silver metal roofs found nearby in Cahaba Village, another WPA-era project, are incorporated into the architecture.
Fitting a massive new Jackson-Olin High School into Birmingham’s existing Ensley neighborhood was the challenge for architects Goodwyn, Mills & Cawood. Creating good urban frontage and architecture that manages to be both secure and open, they broke the mass down and located the most active parts of the school along the front with good visibility. The new school’s strong civic presence promises to boost an effort to stabilize and revive the area.
Replacing three former high schools with a new Gadsden City High School was the task facing the joint-venture design team of Gadsden-based McElrath & Oliver, Architects and Cooper & Associates Architects. Harking back to the classical character of a long-lost high school, the Georgian-inspired buildings are ranged around a courtyard that separates academic wings from what is called a ‘venue wing’. The unified school has become an instant landmark along I-759 into town.
To make the most of a former municipal golf course site, Giattina Aycock Architecture Studio concentrated the core of the new Carver High School around a courtyard at the top of a ridge in a north Birmingham neighborhood with views across the treetops to the downtown skyline. Playing fields are ranged across the lower part of the site, keeping the open-space amenity intact for nearby residents.
These high schools are truly Flagships for the Community and a model for others.
