Design Review at Work
Any Alabama city or town wishing to shape itself as an appealing, livable place has a fine tool available. It’s called design review.
Though the term may sound esoteric to some, those who now use design review find the process to be a practical and effective way for a neighborhood, district or whole town to build on existing strengths. As this look at “Design Review at Work” illustrates, you can see the effect of many decisions add up to something quite transforming.
First to initiate design review in the state was the City of Mobile, where establishment of local historic districts in the 1960s included an architectural review board. This is the way many other places across the South got into the process of managing change. In the larger picture, it became a way to conserve and revive older neighborhoods in decline.
Anywhere local historic districts are created under a zoning ordinance, design review kicks in. But the procedure of reviewing and shaping projects – be they renovations or new buildings or signage or where parking and landscape go – can be applied more broadly.
As we show here, since 1979 the City of Birmingham has created not only local historic districts (mainly residential) but commercial revitalization districts (mainly business) where everything comes under the same design review committee staffed by the city but with volunteers (many of them design professionals). Their work at resolving controversial projects has become a part of civic culture. Similarly, the City of Mountain Brook established in 1997 a Villages Design Review Committee that focuses on what the suburb considers its “crown jewels.”
There are many others locations across the state doing something similar. Among them are Gadsden, Hartselle, Trussville, Helena and Vestavia Hills. The applications of design review can be as varied as the places where it’s used.
