The Mu Psi Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. is sponsoring a Scholarship Design Competition for Tuskegee University architecture students to design a mixed-use Live/Work building in Birmingham’s Graymont Avenue district. The Competition Awards Luncheon will be on Friday – November 8, 2013 at Alagasco’s Center for Energy Technology at 12:00 noon. The Scholarship Competition is part of the fraternity’s Go-to-High-School, Go-to-College mentoring initiative. The Live/Work Building is a two-story structure designed for persons needing first floor restaurant space and second floor space for their residence, all combined into a single mortgage. This year’s site is on the campus of Mt. Zion Full Gospel Baptist Church on Graymont Avenue. Students and professors from Tuskegee University visited Birmingham in September to document site and contextual information in the Graymont area. The students have finished their designs and a jury of individuals from varying professions evaluated the designs on October 25th to select the first, second, and third place winners.
Jurors in this year’s Competition included:
– Nolanda Bearden of NHB Group Architects
– Dan Kessler, Disability Rights and Resources
– Tammy Cohen of Cohen Carnaggio Reynolds Architecture
– Keith Owens, MBA Structural Engineers
– Angela Nash, Formworks Architects
At Friday’s Awards Luncheon, Mu Psi Lambda Chapter will award the top three designs. The First Place winning team’s design will be converted into construction documents and beginning January 2014, Mu Psi Lambda will launch a fundraising campaign to raise funds to actually construct the building in Graymont for a prospective buyer needing combined ground floor restaurant space and a second floor residence at a discount cost. For more information on the Tuskegee Student Design Competition or if you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution toward the scholarship and building construction fund, please visit www.mupsilambda.com, go to the ‘Tuskegee’ quick link tab and click on the ‘Donate’ button, or you can call 205-527-2113.
