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
No comments:
Post a Comment