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Please scroll below for project description.

The Institute for the Visual Arts (IVA) design is envisioned as an iconic two-story building that will support the Department of Art and Art History’s vision to be identified as a site of artistic innovation. Located on a prominent campus corner, the IVA will complete UAB’s vision for the arts and create an arts destination for students, faculty, staff and members of the greater Birmingham community.

Programmatically, the IVA will provide exhibition spaces for an active program of regularly changing exhibitions of historic and contemporary art including student and faculty exhibitions that serve as teaching tools for the faculty of the School of Arts and Humanities. The Project will enhance teaching and learning by providing studio and classroom space, and a permanent home for the art history program that is currently housed in temporary quarters. All galleries, classrooms and administrative offices are organized around a two story atrium lobby.In the spirit of the UAB Campus Master Plan, “to enhance the pedestrian qualities of the Campus and build desirable linkages”, the selected site plan includes a Sculpture Plaza to the southwest. The Sculpture Plaza, an extension of the main atrium lobby, will provide a centralized special events gathering space for the entire Arts District. Designed to support a wide range of events from catered dinners to musical, art, and media performances the plaza will add an active, visible, source of energy that will provide a destination for the students and art community.