Birmingham narrows visual preferences but defers building program for proposed community and senior center

Newman Smith Architecture showed Birmingham City Commission members visual-preference results and a draft space program Feb. 10 as part of early design work for a proposed Birmingham Community and Senior Center on East Lincoln.

The presentation combined an interactive community word-cloud and image-based choices with a room-by-room “programming exercise” meant to test how many multiuse rooms, fitness spaces and pool hours the building would need. Jim Stock, principal at Newman Smith Architecture, guided commissioners and the public through materials, entry forms, building forms and a schedule-based analysis of how existing providers expect to use shared space.

The exercise produced a program that the architects summarized as about 38,003 square feet of net space and roughly 49,090 square feet gross after circulation and support spaces were added — at the upper end of the commission’s previously stated planning range of 44,500 to 49,000 square feet. The draft calls for a 7,200-square-foot gym (sized for a full basketball court and three pickleball courts),…