Cheryl Morgan, Director of the Center for Architecture and Urban Studies in Birmingham gives us some updates on the work from the past semester:

Impact of the Fall 2004 FIPSE exchange - Auburn Urban Studio

The Fall 2004 tri-lateral exchange here in Birmingham has proven to have a number of impacts that are worth noting – one year later.

1. One of last year’s students – Fernando Abreu-Eracia, from Merida – returned to Auburn this year as part of our RURAL Studio certificate exchange program.

Last fall Fernando took full advantage of the opportunities of our program of study as well as the opportunities of place afforded by Birmingham. Included in our activities was a trip to our well known Rural Studio. We were able to visit some of the famous projects and they also had a chance to meet the Auburn students in the program. Fernando was so impressed that he was determined to come back and participate first hand. He applied last Spring and was accepted as a certificate program student. He will be in Newbern, AL for the entire year.

2. Each of our projects from the Fall term continues to create positive results:

- The project illustrations and diagrams for Alabama Youth homes are being used in meetings across the area to promote the project and help in fundraising.

- The Small Town Design Initiative in Fairfield has precipitated a great deal of activity in the community.

The mayor successfully proposed to his council that the illustrative plan be adopted as a guideline for revitalization. He also has been using the plan to recruit new retail to the historic downtown and for promotion of downtown opportunity.
In June, the Urban Studio was part of a charrette in Fairfield that focused on one of the central areas of our proposal. The charrette included the Regional Planning Commission, the mayor and council, local merchants and developers, a prominent county commissioner, the community’s state representative, the county’s economic development officer and representatives from Magic Johnson’s development company who are considering an entertainment district in this historic African American community. The review of our work was strongly endorsed by an array of “real world” experts and of particular interest was the housing proposal and mixed-use pedestrian scale neighborhood center that were seen as components of successfully repositioning the community to capture growth opportunities.

- The flood mitigation and park project in Ensley has received $975,000 in funding and is moving forward.

This project was prominently included in a regional exhibit of works/projects that are moving forward (at last !) the 1924 Olmsted Plan for Birmingham. A two day conference and exhibit (along with a reprinting of the Olmsted Plan) were hosted by the Birmingham Historic Society, several local land trusts and CAWACO. The exhibit remains on display at the downtown library through December.

3. Interest in the FIPSE exchange remains high.

I think this is in large part because of very successful exchanges with Canada (Manitoba) and Mexico (San Luis Potosi) last fall.
This spring we will have four 4th year students in Merida: one as the FIPSE exchange scholar and three as invited participants by the University. Two 5th year students will be in exchange with Waterloo – one as the FIPSE scholar; the other as an invited participant.

4. The formalization of our interaction with the professional community last fall – as a result of the needs of the grant – has led to two significant advances for the Urban Studio.

One – for the first time, the local AIA has included the Urban Studio in their annual budget. Up until we requested financial support for offsetting some last minute AU fees required of the exchange students we had never had ongoing financial support from the local AIA chapter.
Two – this fall we initiated a short project that had one-on-one developmental support with local practicing professionals. The students designed a small project as a sketch problem during the first ten days of the term. During the last ten days (post Thanksgiving break) they returned to this project and were each teamed with a practicing professional to develop their project with particular consideration for the integration of structure, systems, code/ADA requirements, and materials. It was a very successful project and I believe will become a new interactive prototype for the studio in future semesters.

5. Finally, the FIPSE exchange has led us to a proposal for a new teaching paradigm the Urban Studio.

Because of our nature as a remote Center, the Urban Studio is able to teach and relay pedagogical content through sometimes non-traditional models. Last fall we experimented with delivery of our professional practice course as a two-week intensive. The three-hour course – which on main campus would meet three hours per week (51 hrs.) – met 5 hours a day for 10 days. Course content was delivered during the “morning” five hours and then in the afternoons assignments were completed with mentoring from practicing professionals. All other classes were suspended during these two weeks. This experiment worked very well. The students were focused (and we believe it helped the Spanish speaking students immensely to have this concentration on one area – particularly this course with its technical content.) It was easy to see what was learned (and what wasn’t) and to then reinforce or review immediately. The “complete” course content was also available for the balance of the term as we continually returned to it during office visits, site visits and our studio project work. In addition, this format allowed our professionals and pro practice teacher to have a committed time of intense interaction that could be scheduled well in advance.

This experiment with pro practice has given us encouragement and enthusiasm for pursuing a new model of course delivery and professional interchange that we are investigating for next year. This new “paradigm” may make it possible for every student coming to Birmingham to have IDP work experience, be supported on full scholarship, and advance their education in ways truly “not possible” at Auburn. I believe the FIPSE exchange launched us on this road.