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News Article

Final Boards are up

The following is a brief description from each student, from their final board. Below each description is a link to their boards. Feel free to take a look and tell us what you think! Thank you

Pratisha (Nuwakot, Nepal)

The Concept of my design is to design a Projected Trail which interacts with all of the vehicular roads that connect the site and the ground plane of  “The Cut”. Through this people can experience the industrial history of the City of Birmingham while walking through “The Eco-Cut”. Ecologically the site will be allowed to grow on its own, a industrial labyrinth.

Board 1

Board 2

Claire (Wetumpka, Alabama)

Incorporating and including ecology in our cities is becoming increasingly important. As urban sprawl continues to swallow up our free and open lands, we must account for part of this ecological loss by re-filling our cities with ecological pockets and corridors. Not only does this aid ecological systems like food chains, migration patterns and population checks, nut it also plays a big part in human enjoyment and out quality of life in cities. Bird populations have been declining for the last 50 years due mainly to loss of habitat. My proposal for Line Park is to create a place for birds, all of the species they depend upon, and also a place for people. Both migrating birds and resident birds will be able to find in line Park the four elements they need: water, cover, food and shelter. Plant species were chosen based on their functionality and performance towards birds and bird’s food chains. The overall design is meant to welcome both birds and people to Line Park, and to develop relationships between the two. Line Park has potential to spur economic development in Birmingham and my approach to this design reflects and exploits this potential.

Board 1

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Yang (Beijing, China)

Tree Roots or Grassroots Landscape: From the center extends to the surrounding, extending to the Railroad Park – Railroad Cut – Sloss Furnace. From soft materials (railroad Park) to hard materials (Sloss Furnace) relationship between hard materials and vegetations. Making a whole and I will reflect to natural and sustainable landscape design. I will this space, divide into three parts. Include the trail strategy, culture strategy and industry strategy. Making whole space. I will propose this space a mix space (trail + culture + industry). I use of canopy divided into two space – on the canopy(tree trunk) and under canopy (tree root). I want to the whole railroad cut design has become a landmark through the Birmingham City.

Board 1

Board 2

Matt (Trussville, Alabama)

The concept of this design is to use water as a social accumulator, which will in turn create a meaningful place. The shape of the “paths” are designed to increase the opportunity for social encounters by creating moments of close pedestrian proximity.

This site is a key link for Railroad Park and Sloss Furnace. This link is being further developed by designing subtle hints to tie the two spaces together. Water will almost always attract people, but the water in the “Canal Walk” will serve as a visual connection to Railroad Park’s use of water. The condition of the walls of this space are simple, efficient concrete walls, which ties to the industrial history of this specific site and of the City of Birmingham as a whole. This industrial feeling will serve as a connection to Sloss Furnace.

Board 1

Board 2

Fei (Beijing, China)

This project theme is Ecology Education. I use three main elements to design this site, Seasonal Plant, Storm Water and Activity area. I want to use these elements to education people the ecology landscape. There are four season plant in the site and the storm water high will change during the different season. Then I create a path to connect these elements to achieve the purpose of education.

Board 1

Board 2

Raf (Miami, Florida)

The site commonly referred to as “The Cut" is a 26 foot wide railway easement that was once used to top load and unload freight trains. The site offers some unique potential not only because of its characteristics (there aren't many cities that have a 4 block long 26 foot wide alleyway) but also because of its location between Railroad Park and Sloss Furnace as well as the Museum, Theatre and Loft districts to the north and UAB's campus to the south. Other ASSETS along "The Cut" include the BBVA building, new housing, ample parking, a few open green spaces and low vacancies thanks to several design firms and other businesses along 1^st Ave S. Some ISSUES are the unsafe and unpleasant pedestrian environments which is too hot during the summer and has too much traffic at high speeds at 22nd street to be considered a safe crossing. The railroad line to the North also causes some accessibility problems and the west end of “The Cut", where traffic merges together produces an unsafe pedestrian space.

Board 1

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Greg (Atlanta, Georgia)

Line Park – Cultural Park and Greenspace

Line Park is a multi-use greenspace and cultural park, situated in central Birmingham. Focusing on three aspects of culture (History, Arts, and Social Interactions), Line Park is a place for a wide range of uses by a diverse range of people. Street festivals, art exhibits, open air markets, and may other activities are all possibilities. From large city-wide events, to small family functions, Line Park is a vibrant and place to celebrate the rich culture of Birmingham.

Board 1

Board 2

Final Review

Final Review
The students had their final review this past Thursday. Ben and I would like to give a big thank you to everyone who dropped by to critique the students’ work. Represented in the review group were Birmingham City, Operation New Birmingham, Rotary Club, the Community Foundation, Fresh Water Land Trust, The Regional Planning Commission, and Auburn University as well as several local architecture and landscape architecture firms. It was a great turn out, and the enthusiasm from the group for the cut project was a perfect way for the students to end their time in Birmingham. Later Thursday night and the following Friday, the students moved out of the Alabama School of Fine Arts and headed back to Auburn. We are very thankful to everyone for their hospitality throughout these last five weeks, and we would like to give a special thanks to Cheryl, Kay, and Matt for allowing us to take over their studio space for the summer semester. Please stay tuned for future postings of the students final design boards.

Location:Birmingham, AL

It's Official

It's official, the City and Rotary are going to improve The Cut! Such great news and such a needed pedestrian improvement to help link some of the areas great assets!
Here is link to the news article!
This is the last day the students and I will meet. I think I can speak for both Kelly and myself, and express how much fun we have had these past 5 weeks with the students!
They have had such a unique opportunity to live, work and focus on such a great project. It's rare when you get chances like this to take time and to focus your energies on one goal, one project and one idea. I can't wait to see what they all present this afternoon to the stakeholders!
Since it has been the last week of work for the students, Kelly and I have cut back on the time we spent with the students to really let them work. Every one of them have grown and evolved their ideas, it has been a great process to watch. Along the way I can only hope they have learned some new skills and have some new tools that they can use as they go forward in their studies and careers. Here's to 5 great weeks of work and to careers filled with making a difference!

Location:Birmingham AL

Wrapping up

Hey Beautiful Birmingham! Hey Everyone! My name is Yang Wang. I grew up in Beijing, China. I'm a Capital Normal University Landscape Architecture undergraduate and a second year Master of Landscape Architecture Auburn University student. In short five weeks studio is about to end here. The 'Railroad Cut' project towards the end. Remember that this time is fine and happy. Starting from the map analysis to the present specific implementation, each step is very strict, manifested the very strong logic. In this process, we have lost direction and confused, but through the guidance of professor and two reviews feedback, help us out of confusion. At the same time, it was very nice to get to meet some stakeholders and local landscape designers and hear their theory input. ‘Why?’ this is probably the five weeks lots of times a word, but it is precisely because of the continuous questions that each individual design in continuous improvement. During this time we also going to the field trip research from a variety types of materials, it included timber, stone, and brick harvested both locally here in Birmingham as well as throughout Alabama and the Southeast. And visited a local office of landscape architecture design, it whole design processes with have a new explanation. Next step we will continue to work hard and make a wonderful place for this ‘Railroad Cut’. As soon as possible will final review, everyone on the project for doing a last effort, here I wish everyone good luck. Finally, I will appreciate Auburn University, Alabama School of Fine Arts, our professors Ben Wieseman and Kelly Homan have given us in working on this exciting project this summer 2012 semester.
Happy July 26th to everyone! I love Birmingham! I love this magic studio!

Location:Birmingham al

Student again

Hey everyone, my name is Matt Phillips. I'm an Auburn University Horticulture graduate and a second year Master of Landscape Architecture student. I grew up in Trussville, so I am fairly familiar with the city of Birmingham. Although, working in Birmingham in a studio environment provides a completely different perspective. The approach to this studio is more of a design firm approach, which has helped get us prepared for life on the outside. It has been both challenging and rewarding in the knowlege and skills gained during these few weeks. Ben and Kelly's guidance toward the way a firm works has allowed me to tailor my skills to be more productive both conceptually and graphically. The site for this project has been interesting because it has a lot of potential to help connect the city, while also catalyzing development around it. This potential along with the uniqueness and history of the site makes this a very exciting project for both the AU MLA program and residents of Birmingham. Although we've stayed very busy in studio, in our off time we've been able to enjoy many of the assets that help make Birmingham what it is, which has been both interesting and fun. There's not much time left in the semester, so we should be extremely productive these next few days!

Location:Birmingham al

Student updates

An Intense Five Weeks
​My name is Raf Egües. I'm from Miami, Florida and am another one of the seven masters of Landscape Architecture students up here in Birmingham this summer at Auburn's Urban Studio running through July 27th. Well, we're almost there, just six more days until our final presentations. Our five weeks here in the Auburn Urban Studio sure have flown by. It's been a challenging time which has helped me develop some important design skills. This project has been great at challenging me to use my undergraduate education in Public Administration as well as my masters work in Community Planning and now Landscape Architecture to work towards a great design to this unique space we've come to call “The Cut”. I find myself much more comfortable wrestling with concepts and ideas for my design and working through various iterations to find what works best for the space, the city and the community.
​Aside from the 10am to 6 pm studio workdays we have also had a few adventures both for class and on our own time. One of those adventures was our recent trip down to Marion, Alabama. We were sent there to document our first impressions of this small county seat of a little over 3,500 people. It was a nice little town packed with history and character, and the lunch we had at Dottie's in downtown was delicious. Our month long membership at First Avenue Rocks has proved to be really fun and quite a challenge. Not only have I gotten a great fun workout but it has also given me an excuse to pry myself away from my studio work at the end of the day to clear my head. An added bonus is that First Avenue Rocks is located at the eastern end of our site on 1st avenue south and 24th street so we get to pass by “The Cut” every afternoon, helping me become better acquainted with the site.
​Local professionals have been very hospitable during our stay here, both in coming to visit our studio like Nimrod Long did yesterday to inviting us out to see their firm like Stephen Schrader and Tommy Holcombe of HNP did last week. We appreciate their hospitality. Our two reviews have yielded a lot of constructive feedback that has helped us push on towards our final design proposals. I look forward to seeing what our last week of work yields for our presentations next week. I hope we present some great ideas that help this area of Birmingham become a vibrant link between beautiful Railroad Park and Sloss Furnaces. I appreciate the opportunity Auburn University, Alabama School of Fine Arts, The City of Birmingham, ONB, Rotary Club of Birmingham and our professors Ben Wieseman and Kelly Homan have given us in working on such an exciting project this summer. -Rafael “Raf” Egües




Hi everyone. I am Fei Xiong a second year student of Masters in Landscape Architecture from Auburn University. I completed my four years undergraduate in Environment Design degree from Architecture Program, Tianjin Finance & Economics University, China. Before I came to America that I learn lots of knowledge about Environment Design which is similar to Landscape program. But I feel a huge different way of education between China and America when I came to United State. Here are paying more attention to the logic of education and introductory education here which is very helpful to me. I really enjoy to study in Auburn University. And now we are in Birmingham and design for the “cut” project. I really excited about the cut project going to be activated. I realized the Birmingham city is a special city and it has lots of potential and opportunities to development. This city has lot of history and lot of old structures. Now one of our design purposes is to connect Railroad Park, Cut and Sloss Furnaces. This is the fourth week we been here to design the site and we already had two reviews within last four week. I’m very grateful to those valuable beedback from professors and residents. It was very helpful to my design and made our design became more practical. I like this project very much and also thanks for the people who give us very valuable opinions. We will continue to work hard and make a wonderful place for this beautiful city.

Location:Birmingham, AL

Student field trip

Evolutia Field Trip
The students recently took a field trip to both Evolutia’s material warehouse located on 35th ave North as well as their showcase room located in downtown Homewood http://evolutiamade.com/ . The students spent several hours touring the facility and learning about the process of reclaiming valuable materials for adaptive reuse projects. Materials included timber, steal, stone, and brick harvested both locally here in Birmingham as well as throughout Alabama and the Southeast. Starting at the warehouse, the students learned about various types of raw materials, methods of processing these materials, and deconstruction techniques. At the showroom they saw finished products ranging from benches to exterior wall claddings to countertops. A big thanks to our tour guide Robert who took time out of his day to show us around and teach us the value in harvesting materials.

Location:Birmingham AL

Halfway there

We have hit the halfway point for the studio. It has been an exciting and intense 3 weeks. This coming Monday, the students will be presenting their concept plans. So to help them get ready we took time on Friday to just talk about the power of concept plans, the use and ability to quickly sketch and communicate ideas. We took a quick walk to explore a few spaces in town together and relate what we were experiencing to some of our own ideas about our designs. One of our exercises this past week was to give each student 2 minutes to summarize and present their ideas, with no visual aides. Then we asked each other what were the big points of the 2 minute presentation. Each student responded to one another to summarize each other's core ideas and concepts. Friday we completed the same exercise, but this time we spent 5 minutes and drew our concepts on a napkin, stressing the power of concept drawing and sketching, talking about the ability designers have to quickly show and communicate to others, ideas using quick drawings.
Sketching is a powerful tool. The napkin exercise was really well executed by the students. Below are some of their quick renderings of their ideas.
At this mid point in the studio, we are also keeping up with all the good news about The Cut and the great comments and support these types of projects can recieve. Just this Sunday there was another article in the newspaper with many comments of support for The Cut.
After Monday, the students will be working towards their final plans and presentations. They have put in a lot of work to get to where they are now. Heading to the end we stil have a lot to talk about, and even more to do, but we are getting there.

Location:Birmingham,United States

Student Post #2

Hello Birmingham. I am Pratisha Shakya, a current second year student of Masters in Landscape Architecture from Auburn University. I completed my five year undergraduate in Architecture from Khwopa Engineering College, Purbanchal University, Nepal. My experience in Landscape Architecture is very different from what I learned during my undergrad. I feel that this degree has helped me gain practical knowledge. I am thus experiencing this from this project of “The Cut” as well. It has been two weeks that I have been here in Birmingham and I am enjoying the stay here. As Claire said, we are actively participating in different activities happening in downtown Birmingham. Birmingham really has lots of potential and opportunities for people. That is why in my understanding Birmingham is growing so fast. I also found Birmingham is one of the rare cities in US which has really preserved its history through time. I personally like the architecture and history of this city very much. Therefore, I am very positive in preserving the history of “The Cut” as well. Regarding our design, we had our first review which was very informative in which we presented our big idea in front of stakeholders. The feedback we got from that review greatly helped me to focus my idea on practical basis and communicated what Birmingham really needed right now, which is to engage people in lots of outdoor activities through “The Cut” as well as preparing a link from Railroad Park to Sloss Furnace. So, all of our big ideas relate that theme. For me it has been a great experience to explore Birmingham along with participating in fun activities out here in downtown. I love my stay here and it feels like it truly has a MAGIC within!

Student perspective

7/6/2012 Hi everyone! I am one of the Landscape Architecture students working on the project for these short five weeks. I wanted to share my thoughts about how the studio is going and how living in Birmingham has been thus far. The first review went really well, it seemed to come so soon but I am sure that is how all the reviews will feel. It was very nice to get to meet some stakeholders and local designers and hear their input. They had some awesome ideas for us, and were very helpful in aiding us in progressing our ideas. Living in Birmingham has been exciting, and more active than I expected. A few of us have joined a rock climbing gym right off the cut, First Avenue Rocks. Some of us have also taken advantage of the free classes offered at Rail Road Park. Birmingham has a lot to offer once you start looking. I can only hope the cut will provide another place for residents and visitors to enjoy the magic city! -Claire Ritchey

The First Review

The students had their first design review July 3rd of this week.  Having spent the previous week and weekend exploring the railroad cut and surrounding area through site visits and mapping exercises, the students were each tasked with developing several big ideas for their vision for the cut. At the review each student presented two or three of these ideas along with the site analysis driving the idea.  Eleven stakeholders and design professionals then discussed with the students the strengths and weaknesses of each idea.  The feedback given to the students was excellent and we want to thank everyone who came out to the review. Each student will now move forward with one idea which they will develop further throughout the rest of the semester. Please check back in soon to see how the student’s designs are progressing.  Happy July 4th to everyone!

News article

Front page mention in the paper! Nice start to the holiday! http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/07/post_766.html

Day 5, End of the first Week

Well the first week of class is through. The students have done a great job of keeping up with the workload to date and presenting some great ideas. They are scheduled for their first jury review this coming Tuesday and have work to do to get ready.

Friday we spent our time together, reviewing and critiquing their big ideas. They were challenged with continuing to interpret and refine their analysis drawings along with a presenting 2-3 big ideas to Kelly and I on Friday. Joining Kelly and I, Matt Churnock with the City of Birmingham and Phil Amthor with the Regional Planning Council of Greater Birmingham, showed up to see what the students had been doing and provide their insights.

We had a great afternoon reviewing some big ideas. As we discussed, the students are charged with formulating a vision for the Cut and designing this vision through the framework of minimalism. We talked Friday about the difference of using minimalism as a framework and its use as a design motif. It's coming together. We had the afternoon to review 2 or 3 big ideas from each student and to critique not just the idea, but help them explore what they need to do to further this idea, and the needs they have to successfully tell their story.

By Tuesday the students will clean up and polish their big ideas, presenting 2-3 to a group of stakeholders. The goal is to allow the students to use graphics and quick summaries to present their thoughts and ideas about the cut to the stakeholders and then allow the stakeholders to respond. The most critical task for the students on Tuesday is to listen. Listen to what is said to them, about their ideas and overall how the stakeholders feel about the Cut and their ideas.

The graphics will be strong and will convey the students' vision, combined with short presentations. All the stakeholders will have several big ideas to respond to and provide feedback for. That is the goal.

From what we saw on Friday we are headed there, we just have to make sure we get there.

Days 3 and 4

After finishing up their work on the first design assignment, Kelly and I took the students back to the Cut to introduce the project. All of the students have previously completed some brief work on the cut and have some experience with the site, which is going to greatly assist them this semester.

This time the students saw the Cut in a barren state. The Cut has been been cleaned and graded per the recent work by CSX to take up all of the abandoned track and railroad ties. In the the process they quickly regraded and scraped the site, clearing away all vegetation. We had a few minutes to talk about the path we choose to get to the Cut and what we thought of our experience as we approached our project site.

We spent the next day at Railroad Park touring the project with the Executive Director, Camille, to get a hands on tour of design application. Camille shared her issues and opportunities that have been discovered during the past year with the designers' material selections, the details of how those objects connect, practical relationships about how the park is used by the public and material selections for those designed spaces. It was an eye opening tour to connect design choices with end users and their associated costs. We ended the day with assigning the next leg of analysis maps the students need to quickly conquer.


This was followed  with a pin up and review of the maps and data collection the following day. The students have made a great start and will be refining their analysis and interpretation of the data throughout their work this semester.


Day 5 gives the students an opportunity to show Kelly and I their first impressions and initial concepts of ideas for the semester leading to Tuesday's first jury with stakeholders.

Day 2!

Day 2... so we can say day one was a success or at least we got through it together. We filled day one with the usual first day of class activities; introductions, syllabus review, rules of the studio and the dorms the students get to stay in this summer. We then dove head first into our first design assignment.

One of the overarching goals of the studio is to introduce the students not only to the urban fabric, but to refine their analytic skills to analyze, review and incorporate art and design into their creative process. In addition we all need to figure where we were going this semester and make sure we were all moving forward together. The student syllabus and their selected readings is here.

The first design project was an exercise to do all of the above. We spent our first day analyzing paintings, then building on that analysis to reproduce and fill in the edges of the painting to imagine the setting it captured and the urban form it described. We took all of our plans and meshed them together into our own unique City of plazas. We filled in our city. What we found were the spaces in between the ones we drew. We found new places that interconnected the plazas we had developed from the art. These new spaces were then each assigned to the students. Everyone was tasked with designing a new pedestrian space. To imagine the context they had invented and to create a space using minimalism.

I think I was nice. We worked for 4 hours together on Monday, then I gave them the evening and the next morning to work their magic getting together at noon on Day 2 to see what they had come up.

What they came up with was an excellent discussion and definition of Minimalism. They defined the objective, built the rules and then tested all of their concepts against it. It was a good day, at least from my perspective. We spent the remainder of the time introducing "The Cut" and began in earnest on our next assignments. Tomorrow is another class, another pinup and review, more discussion, more learning and lot more drawing.

Below is our composite City of Plazas, art analysis, vignette sketches and our definition as we move forward.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Summer 2012 Auburn's Master of Landscape Architecture, Urban Studio. This blog will serve as a place to document and share the work of the studio as well as to interact and engage with the students, instructors, local professionals and and anyone who would like to follow along with the studio. We are excited about getting started and eager to jump into this semester's studio work.

This semester the students will be spending five weeks in Birmingham, living, working and learning about the city while working on a specific design project. This years project will be "The Cut". A four block, existing linear cut in in Downtown Birmingham that once provided rail road access into Downtown. The students will have five weeks to prepare and assemble their vision for how the cut could be designed to serve as a pedestrian connection through an urban environment. The students are providing their ideas and vision to the conversation. A project and conversation that many local professionals have engaged in, along with its current documentation in the Red Rock Ridge & Valley Trail System.

As the weeks progress it is our intent to use this blog as a means of recording the design process and documenting the students' work as we go. The students will be primarily working on their designs for the cut in the studio, but will also be tasked with additional design assignments that will help them through the process and relate to their work.

We are thrilled and excited to get started and look forward to a great semester.

Ben Wieseman