Author: Gina Clifford

A Birmingham studio specializing in the art of letterpress printing combines centuries-old letterpress techniques with today’s digital technology. Letterpress operator Bradey Baxter and Brian Authement, creative director of the Birmingham graphic design and branding firm Odie and Partners, opened After Press last year in Birmingham’s Homewood section. Among the many customized items available are limited-edition art prints, invitations, note cards, logos, letterhead and posters.  After Press also provides design services to help customers bring their own ideas to fruition.

–Photo Courtesy of Graham Yelton

A master plan for Tuskegee University is being designed to address the overall organization of campus functions, create a more pedestrian-friendly and immersive collegiate environment and improve infrastructure. “We are reviewing the final draft of the plan, and the final plan document will be presented to the Tuskegee University Board of Trustees in March,” says Jason Fondren, principal planner with KPS Group in Birmingham. Underutilized historic buildings will be renovated. The plan also includes several concepts that are an extension of Tuskegee’s “learning by doing” approach established by Booker T. Washington. Proposals include a solar farm to supply power to campus and a farm program to provide fresh produce to campus dining facilities.

-Photo Courtesy of KPS Group, Inc.

It is virtually impossible to separate architecture from community. Architecture and the result of its application through design and construction are meant for the community. The community is the end-user of the works of architecture, so the needs and preferences of the community must be met.

In The Architecture of Community, Leon Krier identifies two kinds of architecture existing today. An international-style architect’s architecture that may be perceived as arrogant or provocative and architecture often based on regional models that attempts to blend naturally with the architecture of existing landscapes and cities.

Joel Blackstock, president of Williams Blackstock Architects in Birmingham, notes that people sometimes think of a building as simply siting on a site, but a building must fit into the fabric of the community.

He points to several examples of his firm’s projects that foster community, including the Birmingham News building constructed in a blighted area on the site of an unused parking lot. The design incorporated the building into its surroundings, such as the use of brick to harmonize with the masonry pallet of the nearby turn-of-the-century St. Paul’s Cathedral. In addition, a plaza on the corner created public space.

Renovation of the UAB Comprehensive Center provided cohesion and connection to its urban context. A new two-story glass lobby serves as the grand entrance and connects to the street level and to the second level adjacent medical center’s pedestrian concourse. Large third floor windows offer a look at research activities.

The business incubator Innovation Depot operates in a former abandoned Sears building once covered in graffiti. A town center was created inside the building, located in a struggling area of downtown Birmingham that Blackstock says has now “turned that area of town around.”

–Photos Courtesy of Williams Blackstock Architects

Two teams of University of Alabama mechanical engineering students spent their senior year designing prototypes for tools that NASA anticipates it will need for planned missions in the 2020s and beyond. The UA teams are participating with 22 schools nationwide in NASA’s Microgravity Neutral Buoyancy Experiment Design Team (Micro-g NExT) competition. These tool prototypes will be used to help collect samples from asteroids and move them closer to the moon’s orbit to be studied. The technology concepts developed by the university teams could someday be used to mine resources on asteroids as well as Mars, according to NASA.

An old cotton gin in Birmingham’s Avondale district is now the site of Cahaba Brewing Company’s new production facility and tasting room, which opened in January. Project architect Williams Blackstock Architects of Birmingham kept the brickwork intact, along with hand-made doors, an industrial elevator and other original details. New features harmonize with the old, including furniture made of reclaimed lumber from an old distillery in Kentucky. Cahaba is renting nearly half of a 51,000-square-foot building that is part of the Continental Gin Industrial Park.

Alabama’s craft beer scene is booming and Good People Brewing Company near Railroad Park and Regions Field in Birmingham was recognized by Southern Living magazine as one of the best breweries in the state. The microbrewery’s taproom was recently renovated by Justin Brown and Matthew Finley of the Birmingham architecture firm BILT in Alabama and was designed to reflect both the industrial character of its surroundings and its natural setting. Repurposed and recycled materials were used throughout, including a new bar built of steel dunnage from the Mercedes Benz plant in Vance. BILT also manufactured the steel windows, doors and other distinctive detailing.