Recent photo of approach to Bryce Main Building.
For over 150 years, the historic Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa, AL was used by the state’s Department of Mental Health. Over time, the monumental facility was being under-utilized and was in need of extensive repair. By 2014, the patients at the historic Bryce Hospital were moved into a new facility nearby. Subsequently, The University of Alabama acquired the historic Bryce Hospital with plans to adaptively reuse the facility as a welcome center for the university and classroom space for the theater and dance department.
View from one of the courtyards.
1970s photo of Main Building approach. Photo from National Park Service.
Cupola on Main Building.
The original Bryce Hospital comprised of a four-story main building and six wings. We were selected as the architect to help the University of Alabama in their pursuit to preserve as much as the original building as possible. During the selective demolition and abatement process, it was determined that much of the historic structure could not be preserved; and, as a result, the two outermost wings were demolished. The remainder of building’s masonry structure will be preserved with a variety of techniques. In some areas, the interior load-bearing walls will be removed and replaced with a steel structure. The exterior masonry walls will be preserved on remaining portions of the historic structure.
The photos below reflect some of the progress made during the selective demolition and abatement process.
Before selective demolition and abatement started in one of the west wings
After selective demolition and abatement process began in one of the west wings
AL.com has posted an article with more information about the Bryce Hospital’s former use. http://s.al.com/y1sD3nk
All photos taken by Birchfield Penuel & Associates, unless otherwise noted.
Last night, several from the BPA family attended the Birmingham AIA Design Awards, held at Christopher House Antiques. BPA submitted three total projects this year in the Detail, Adaptive Reuse, and Commercial categories. Although we didn’t win an award this year, we felt very inspired seeing the design work coming out of all the Birmingham design firms right now. Birmingham definitely has an enviable talent base.
Congratulations to all of the winners this year! Check them out HERE.
On May 14th, BPA teamed up with high school students from Central Park Christian School to move 30 bunk beds donated by Central Park Baptist Church to Stoney Creek Camp in Vinemont, AL. These bunk beds will be used in the new dorm facility that has just been completed. After a day of moving and transporting bunk beds everyone had the opportunity to enjoy the camp’s extensive zip-line trails.
Stoney Creek Camp provides summer camp experiences at no cost to inner-city and underprivileged children. Below is a link to the camp’s website to find out more about the camp and their mission.
Thank you to everyone who participated in our giveaway! We're excited to announce our winner!
Rachel McCoy has won:
16” x 20” DS Art print. Artist Don Stewart describes Crab (Ocean Blue) as a beachcomber’s bounty of nautical knick-knacks. It was featured as a mural at The Crab House at Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco. #234/1000
20 oz. Contigo tumbler with straw
Extra-long beach towel (36” x 74”)
20” diameter beach ball
Make sure to subscribe to our blog and follow us on Facebook and Instagram to keep a lookout for our next giveaway!
Summer is upon us, and once again we are excited to welcome a talented group of young faces to the BPA family. We've learned that pursuing young talent keeps our ideas fresh and our technological abilities sharp. You may recall that in March, we sent representatives of BPA to career fairs at Auburn University for both architecture and interior design students. Both fairs were extremely fruitful, and these new team members are a result of those encounters.
We're pleased to announce the addition of two new full-time employees, Micah Martin and Marlee Caldwell.
Marlee Caldwell, Designer
Bachelor of Science in Interior Design Auburn University
Fun facts about Marlee:
considers herself a foodie (loves to eat out and try new restaurants...or eat at some 3 days in a row!)
thinks her dog, Titan, is a human
spends most of her free time on the road visiting friends or going to the beach
killed a plant her first week of work
obtained her LEED Green Associate in Spring 2015
considered a VIP at Sam's Super Sandwiches
Micah Martin, Graduate Architect
Bachelor of Architecture Auburn University
Fun facts about Micah:
plays guitar and soccer
enjoys: live music - anything but country (under any circumstances); traveling, exploring new cities, and finding urban art
favorite writer: Kurt Vonnegut
leather worker (bags, wallets, purses, belts, etc.)
avid Auburn football fan (through good times and bad)
super legit at ping pong - challengers welcomed
Micah and Marlee are joined by a host of other students that have joined us for the summer. Asa Porter and Preston Rains are rising 5th and 3rd year Architecture students, respectively, from Auburn. Kelsie Perry has joined us to complete her senior internship through Auburn's Interior Design department before graduating in August. These summer interns meet a great need in this busy season in the firm's life and hopefully learn a thing or two along the way. They may only be with us for a season, but they will always be a part of the BPA family.
From left to right: Asa Porter, Preston Rains, Marlee Caldwell, Kelsie Perry, Micah Martin.
Last weekend was the 2016 American Institute of Architects’ Annual Conference, held this year in Philadelphia. It was an invigorating weekend with energizing speakers, hundreds of interesting seminars, city sketching tours, playful installations, the unveiling of new technology and gadgets, and even a historic moment. Here are some of the highlights below.
Robert Venturi + Denise Scott Brown, recipients of the 2016 AIA Gold Medal
Denise Scott Brown, studying her 2016 AIA Gold Medal
View of the Expo Floor, photo credits: AIA
Neri Oxman, Keynote Speaker, photo credits: AIA
An NCARB staff member showing a pilot version of ARE 5.0 off. photo credit: NCARB
Our own BPA designer, Allison Vosicky, outside the Expo Hall.
Neri Oxman, an architect and a professor at the MIT Media Lab, was the Keynote speaker for Day 2. She captivated the crowd with a presentation on the intersection of technology and biophilic design, and the possible applications for that work in the future of design and architecture.
In a historic, and emotional moment, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi were awarded the 2016 AIA Gold Medal. As the AIA states,
“The Gold Medal is the highest honor the AIA can confer on an architect or architects. It acknowledges a significant body of work that has had a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture. “
This recognition is so noteworthy because not only was it the highest award an architect could receive, but never in the award’s 109 year history has it ever before been awarded to a duo. In fact, the AIA changed their bylaws so that they could award the medal to both Venturi and his wife, and life-long collaborator, Scott Brown. Mrs. Scott Brown was escorted to the stage and greeted by a powerful standing ovation.
This years’ #ILookup Film Challenge was launched during the conference. “The I Look Up Challenge calls upon filmmakers to share their vision with a 2-3 minute video exploring the power of architecture to create solutions and uplift communities.” – AIA. To kick off the challenge, the AIA released a short film documentary featuring Rural Studio, a community design-build program through Auburn’s Architecture school that several of our BPA architects and designers have had the privilege of participating in over the years. Here are both links to the Rural Studio Film and the ILookUp Film Challenge.
Summer has arrived, and so has our next giveaway! To celebrate warmer weather, longer days, and aquatic activities, we’re giving away the following items:
16” x 20” DS Art print. Artist Don Stewart describes Crab (Ocean Blue) as a beachcomber’s bounty of nautical knick-knacks. It was featured as a mural at The Crab House at Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco. #234/1000
20 oz. Contigo tumbler with straw
Extra-long beach towel (36” x 74”)
20” diameter beach ball
For a chance to win:
LIKE our Facebook post and SHARE our Facebook page to be entered to win!
FOLLOW us on Instagram and Twitter for an additional entry.
We’ll announce the winner on June 10th.
Earlier this week, the Auburn University Urban Studio hosted its end of year Open House to display the final projects of the 5th year Architecture students who've been a part of the Birmingham based program. This year's project had the students focus their efforts on developing a master plan for the Innovation District here in Birmingham, and within that, their individual final projects. Their hard work and talent was evident in the work displayed. A special shout-out to our co-op intern, Krystal Duchene--we're proud to have worked with you while you were at Urban Studio. We know you're going to be successful wherever the road takes you.
Links: Auburn University Urban Studio Auburn University Auburn University College of Architecture, Design and Construction
Photo Credits: Auburn University Urban Studio
Today would have been Jane Jacob's 100th birthday. In celebration of this urban theorist's life and legacy, we share with you a small tribute:
http://www.curbed.com/2016/5/4/11583092/jane-jacobs-legacy
Happy Birthday to the woman who forever changed urban planning, architecture of the built environment and our lovely city streets!
Birmingham's chapter of the American Institute of Architects is one of the most engaged in the country, providing numerous services to local architects. One of those services is regularly scheduled site visits for the chapter's Emerging Professionals, a group of Birmingham's brightest young architects and interns. These site visits not only help us better understand the tangible, real-world side of what we do, but also help us fulfill the on-site requirements of our professional licensure process. This week one of our interns took advantage of the most recent of these opportunities and visited the site of the future Southeast headquarters of Gray Construction.
Gray is currently renovating the former Booker T. Washington building at the corner of 3rd Ave. N and 18th St. in downtown Birmingham. The office building is situated at the very heart of one of downtown's brightest stars, the Theater District. We appreciate the investment Gray has made in the continued revitalization of our great city, and look forward to them occupying their new home.
Photo credit: Charlie Abram, Graduate Architect at BPA
This week on the BPA blog, we wanted to highlight the importance of design collaboration and its role in the development of community within our own city. Pratt City was one of several areas within central Alabama that was destroyed by the April 2011 tornados. The American Institute of Architects released a short film about the rebuilding efforts taking place in Pratt City. Check out our full blog for a link to the video and more info.
In honor of it being National Architecture Week, over the past 5 days we have featured a variety of posts on our social media accounts that represent not only our work and our firm but also the architecture profession as a whole. As the American Institute of Architects put it,
National Architecture Week is a public awareness campaign dedicated to increasing attention to the role architects play as a force for positive change in our communities and to elevate the public’s appreciation of design.
So this week, we wanted to illuminate architecture and what it means for us - from engagement of our communities to the designers and ideas that are shaping the built environment locally and globally.
Here is a re-cap of our week:
Monday
One of our Associate Principals inspecting the cornice work on one of our exterior renovation projects - for the #ilookup campaign. The I Look Up campaign by The American Institute of Architects (AIA) encourages everyone to "Look Up” and see what we can create together.
Tuesday
Wednesday
For #transformationtuesday, we featured before and after photos of a community outreach project we did with @kuumbaensley for their new studio space in downtown Ensley! Our office spent a weekend with Kuumba volunteers to paint, scrub, lay ceiling tile, install bathroom fixtures, and put down carpet. Check out their website for more images of their talented design students hard at work in the newly-improved space!
https://kuumbaensley.wordpress.com/
Our #WCW was the late Zaha Hadid. She was an award-winning architect, fashion designer, and artist. Her work on the Contemporary Arts Center [pictured here] earned Hadid the distinction of being the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize. 📷: www.zaha-hadid.com
thursday
friday
We used #TBT to bring attention to one of our completed projects. Birchfield Penuel & Associates completed exterior and interior renovation work to Alabama Pediatric Dentistry in 2014. The existing brick-clad two-story structure now houses the dental clinic on the ground floor and tenant space above. In the waiting area, we capitalized on an opportunity to open the space to the second level, with applied textural panel and airy, colorful pendant fixtures.
Lastly, today we went down to the Alabama Center for Architecture here in Birmingham where the dreamArchitecture jury is taking place today. DreamArchitecture is an outreach program the local AIA hosts for local children, grades K-5, to introduce them to architecture and encourage creativity. This year's theme--Draw your dream Skyscraper! We have some amazing submissions. To learn more visit aiabham.org.
This past weekend, BPA joined the St. Vincent’s Marching Saints team for Walk MS Birmingham, at Regions Field and Railroad Park. The weather was beautiful and the energy of the event was amazing! It was St. Vincent’s 4th year participating in the Walk and the team ranked in the top 10 overall in fundraising, which is an incredible accomplishment. The Team and the Walk are both very close to their fundraising goals. Please visit the Walk’s website for more information on how you can help create a world free of MS: http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Walk/ALCWalkEvents?pg=entry&fr_id=27185
Last week, Kari Davis with J+J Invision was kind enough to take the BPA interior designers on a tour of their carpet manufacturing facilities in Dalton, Georgia.
The trip began in Chattanooga with a glass blowing class at iGNiS Glass Studio, some spare time for a self-guided walking tour, and a fabulous dinner at Easy Bistro & Bar downtown. We stayed at The Bluff View Inn which was conveniently located to the Hunter Museum of American Art (seen behind us), the glass bridge shown above, and the pedestrian foot bridge that crosses the Tennessee River. In just an hour we were able to explore all of these things and soak up some sunshine along the way!
The next morning we made the short drive to Dalton where we spent the day learning the ins-and-outs of carpet production from the design team's studio (we even got a sneak peek of future designs!) to the packaging and distribution of the modular tiles. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures on-site but promise we looked really good in our neon vests and headsets.
The mill tours are beneficial to both suppliers and specifiers because they provide a chance for interaction and discussion on future trends and needs in the industry. We were grateful for the good company, cuisine and experiences this trip had to offer!
"Then I realized.. Adventures are the best way to learn." - Author Unknown
As Architects and Designers, we often look to outside sources and activities for design inspiration. From looking at the latest magazine article in Architectural Digest to taking a local art class, we are always trying to feed our creative side.
This past weekend, one of our own architects, and several other architects and artists from around the state, attended a 2-day watercolor workshop that focused on composition, drawing and painting buildings/landscapes, and studied light and how it enhances the environment, and in turn, an artistic sketch or rendering.
The workshop was hosted by Birmingham's own Forstall Art Center. The feature artist and workshop teacher was Iain Stewart. Stewart is an architect and painter, and he teaches watercolor and design drawing to architecture students at Auburn University. He also travels around the world sharing his knowledge of watercolor, architectural illustration, and how to use it to capture a "scene" or just the atmosphere of a place or time.
Day 1: Iain Stewart demonstrates watercolor wash tips and techniques
Day 2: Iain Stewart demonstrates composition and value shading
Day 2: Iain Stewart demonstration and paint palette
Day 1: Alicia's practice following the class demonstration on washes and composition
Day 2: Alicia practice of the initial wash following Iain Stewart's demonstration
Day 2: Iain Stewart demonstrates wash values and "saved lights" in paintings
Day 2: Iain Stewart demonstrates initial layout of a drawing using horizon lines and correct scaling
Day 2: Iain Stewart demonstration on darker washes
Day 2: Alicia's final rendering
We highly recommend attending one of his workshops if you have a chance. You will most certainly come away feeling more knowledgeable and inspired.
If watercolor isn't your cup of tea, Birmingham has a number of other classes available around town. Check out these websites for a list of workshops and classes near you. Get your creative mind going with painting, pottery, cooking, music, woodworking, or even screen printing. The possibilities and inspiration are endless.
Photo Credits: Alicia Pughsley, Architect and Associate at BPA
You’ve probably noticed a change in your surroundings over the last couple of weeks. The cold tones of winter have melted away to be replaced with a panoply of the brightest greens and purest blues you’ve ever seen. Spring has sprung in Birmingham and there’s no better time to be outside in our city! Birmingham has a wealth of public outdoor space and its calling your name.
Situated at the very center of downtown, Railroad Park is the heart of the outdoor energy of our city. The park occupies 4 full city blocks and has been the catalyst for much of the growth our urban core has seen since its opening in 2010. Lovingly known as the city’s “front yard,” the lives of its residents are on full display. Grab the hand of someone you love and wander the landscape as trains glide by like kinetic sculpture. Find the workout of your life and some unexpected friendships at one of the park’s free exercise classes. Whatever you do, come and experience for yourself the range of activities Railroad Park has to offer.
If you’re looking for more of a walk on the wild side, you need look no further than the edge of the city center. Two former mining camps have been repurposed as nature preserves that offer more rugged experiences for the bold among us. Ruffner Mountain Nature Preserve has a network of wooded trails that will make you forget you’re in the middle of one of the city’s resurgent neighborhoods. Red Mountain Park is one of Birmingham’s newest outdoor spaces. Thrill seekers will enjoy the park’s many adventures, including the Red Ore zip-line tour.
The Red Rock Ridge and Valley Trail System is the name given to a vision for connecting the many cherished outdoor spaces Birmingham has to offer. Far from a pipe dream, the first of the systems many trails has been constructed and is open to the public. The crown jewel of the trail is Rotary Trail Park, where the trail runs four blocks through a former rail line that is sunken many feet below street level. Set to open next week, Rotary Trail Park is unlike anything you have encountered in Birmingham or beyond.
Your outdoor opportunities are not limited to those listed here. Walk along the historic, tree-lined Highland Avenue. Take in the urban theatre all around you as you dine street-side at a downtown café. It doesn’t really matter what you do so long as it’s outside. A brand new Birmingham is waiting for you.
Happy Easter from our family to yours!
Thank you to everyone who participated in our giveaway! We're excited to announce our two winners!
Jessica Gemeinhart has won the YellowHammer Creative Sloss Poster
Susan Roberts McWilliams has won the YellowHammer Creative "It's Nice to Have You in Birmingham" shirt
Make sure to subscribe to our blog and follow us on Facebook and Instagram to keep a lookout for our next giveaway!
GIVEAWAY ENDS TONIGHT!!
This is your last chance to enter to win some awesome Birmingham paraphernalia designed by Yellowhammer Creative. We'll be ending the giveaway tonight at MIDNIGHT (CT). Tomorrow we'll draw two names and announce the lucky recipients! Don't miss out on this chance!
How do you enter to win you ask?
01. GO to our Facebook page ! (click on the little facebook logo below!)
02. LIKE our original Giveaway post & SHARE our page to be entered to win!
03. FOLLOW us on Instagram for an additional entry.