Urban Studio students’ new secret weapon? A massive map of Birmingham

Auburn students at Urban Studio learn about architecture, environmental design and urban planning by creating design-based solutions for the neighborhoods around downtown Birmingham, Alabama. While site visits will always be necessary, they now have a new resource that allows them to see the city in a different light: a massive, 12-foot-square 3D-printed map.

“It’s not only an accurate representation of the city but also shows the scale and terrain you would experience in real life,” said fifth-year architecture student Jordan King. “It has come in handy for scouting locations and tracking adjacency to surrounding city landmarks, and it has helped us when presenting our thesis masterplan projects to local stakeholders.”

Urban Studio, a teaching and outreach program of Auburn’s College of Architecture, Design and Construction (CADC), is housed at Auburn in Birmingham, alongside programs from the Harbert College of Business and the Provost’s Office. While Auburn has had a presence in Birmingham for decades, this new building represents a permanent commitment to being part of the community.

At Urban Studio, fifth-year architecture students can live and study at Auburn in Birmingham for an entire year, while third-year students can spend a semester. The studio also hosts students from CADC’s landscape architecture and environmental design programs.

The new model, which is scaled at one inch to 200 feet, is made up of individually 3D-printed tiles that students can view from afar or take down and study up close. And as the city of Birmingham grows and changes, so too will the model: updating it is as easy as 3D printing a new section.

A little help from friends

The idea for the map came during the redevelopment of the building, which opened in 2024. Urban Studio Director Alex Krumdieck requested an open-air atrium connecting the program’s two floors in the hopes it might someday display a model of the city. When Williams Blackstock Architects, who were already working on the building renovation, heard about the idea for the model, the firm committed to support the plan with a $100,000 gift that funded the creation of the map, as well as an endowment to cover costs associated with maintaining it.

“As architects, we have a responsibility not only to design meaningful places that positively shape our communities, but also to invest in the future of our profession,” said Stephen Allen, president of Williams Blackstock. “Supporting Auburn’s CADC students is one way we can help cultivate the next generation of designers. We hope this model encourages curiosity, exploration and bold thinking as students study Birmingham’s urban landscape and imagine how their own ideas might shape the city for years to come.”

Getting started

Once Williams Blackstock pledged to support the project, Krumdieck connected with Frank Hu, an assistant professor of landscape architecture and part of a team that recently 3D printed a model of the Peacock Tract neighborhood in Montgomery and museum-quality scale models of the Alabama State House renovations.   

Last summer, Hu and graduate student Esteban Cuellar Gutiérrez crafted the model at CADC’s Research Commons. They ran five 3D printers non-stop for seven weeks to get the project done in time for the fall semester.

“It was exciting, because it brought together everything I had learned about GIS, digital city modeling and fabrication, but the sheer scale and logistical challenges of the project were daunting,” Hu said. “Luckily, Alex was very supportive in giving me freedom and flexibility to make the model the best way I could.”

Readily available

The map is particularly helpful for community partners and residents who stop by to gain a better understanding of the impact of proposed plans before giving their input.

“One of the key parts of our work is to be an outreach studio where we can connect with city officials and stakeholders, and for someone who’s not an architect, it’s a lot easier to understand the model than a set of drawings,” Krumdieck said.

This spring, students are developing proposals for the 21^st Street Viaduct bridge, which is currently closed to traffic while city officials conduct an engineering study. Once they complete their theses proposals, each student will 3D print a new tile that will show how the map would change if their ideas were implemented.

Krumdieck is currently working on creating a mechanism to raise and lower the model so it can be viewed both vertically on the wall and horizontally where students can surround it. He’s also planning to install projectors that can overlay what the city looked like before the interstate system was installed. But for now, students are benefitting immensely from this unique resource that serves both as an illustration of the current cityscape and their hopes for the future.

“I think it's a fantastic piece of art that's also functional,” said fifth-year architecture student Taylor Anderson. “I've used it as a context map and to pitch affordable loft-type apartments in the center of the city along 20th Street. To really understand the overall scale and topography of the city is extremely helpful for both students and the community.”