Checking In? by Jeremy Erdreich June 25, 2010 Bhamarchitect.com By one definition, cities are fundamentally places where strangers can meet to exchange ideas. The urban sociologist Richard Sennett writes extensively on the public space of cities, and how crucial public space is to the exchange of ideas. Public space means not just streets and parks, [...]

Anticipation (2) by Jeremy Erdreich June 24, 2010 at 9:15 am Is this really downtown Birmingham? Yesterday evening Katherine Billemeier (Executive Director of the Railroad Park Foundation) took me and a few others on another tour of the Railroad Park, which is now slated to be open Labor Day weekend. Once again, I was dazzled [...]

Chick-Fil-A Denied…Again bhamarchitect.com by Jeremy Erdreich June 21, 2010 at 4:23 pm About 30 minutes ago, the special appeals board upheld the Design Review Committee’s decision to deny Chick-Fil-A the right to build a stand-alone drive-through restaurant at the corner of 20th Street South and Highland Avenue in the heart of the historic Five Points [...]

See below for statements by residents and a video demonstrating the scale of the project. Lane Parke News June 28 Update: Petition and the following report by Cornelia LaRussa: Please see the online petition http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/laneparkeproject/ opposing a vote on the Lane Parke proposal before the developer has addressed several issues that have been raised by [...]

Rooftop danish bhamarchitect.com June 11, 2010 at 5:59 pm An ambitious plan Denmark’s capital Copenhagen has become the first Scandinavian city to mandate green roofs on all new buildings with slopes of less than 30 degrees. You can read the article here–courtesy of inhabitat. One of the reasons why we don’t have more green roofs [...]

Artist Kate Browne will be building a cocoon using local materials available in Greenwood, Mississippi. The blog shows her group looking for willow branches at the Tallahatchie River. They plan to work with non-invasive species, such as the non-native invasive species like water hyacinth, Chinese tallow, kudzu, privet, that have taken hold in the Delta. [...]

Now or Never: Chick-Fil-A and Walgreen’s Updates by Jeremy Erdreich Wednesday, June 2, 2010 1:38:55 PM Bhamarchitect’s Blog It is time to make yourself heard. Public hearings are set for two controversial issues: The City Council’s Economic Development Committee will discuss the proposal to sell the historic Fire Station No. 22 to Walgreen’s Drugstore on [...]

Wagging a tail By Jeremy Erdreich Bhamarchitect’s Blog May 27, 2010 Yesterday, Dog Days of Birmingham–the new pet grooming/daycare facility was presented at Design Review. Housed in the former Hunter Furniture Building on 18th Street North, the business will occupy the first floor and the owner will live in a loft apartment to be constructed [...]

The architectural firm HKW Associates, located in Birmingham since 1994, is closing up shop, according to Bhamarchitect. Some of its many outstanding accomplishments include projects that emphasize sustainable design & LEED certification. Birmingham projects designed by HKW Associates include Brookwood Mall, which looked like a monolithic-style warehouse when I first came to Birmingham and was [...]

Here is Jeremy Erdreich’s open letter to Kathy Okrongley, President of Connolly Net Lease, LLC–the developer of a proposed Walgreen’s drugstore at the site of historic Fire Station No. 22, Bogue’s Restaurant, and Clairmont Auto on Clairmont Avenue South. He points out that Walgreens and Connolly Net Lease have viable alternatives to simply tearing down [...]

Karl Linn is of German-Jewish origin, a psychoanalyst, author and educator, who, according to his