Alabama Bright Lights – Making a difference by design
Alabama Bright Lights – Dick Pigford of Architecture Works from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
“If you are not dealing with spiritual comfort, you are not dealing with architecture.” – Samuel Mockbee.
The quote by the iconic architect is engraved on the window of Birmingham’s Architecture Works, a firm that belongs to Dick Pigford.
Pigford does not see architecture as an art that helps people live inside structures; he sees it as an art that helps people live.
“I have come to this conclusion after doing this for many years: The key is to be engaged,” Pigford said. “My loving mother (Jeanne Ireland Pigford) taught me to be engaged in everything I did. Now I see what I do as something that helps others become engaged. I help to create community.”
Pigford founded Architecture Works in 1994. The firm’s projects include the Indian Springs School, the Cathedral of Saint Paul, Birmingham-Southern College residence halls, Children’s Harbor, Independent Presbyterian Church, Books-A-Million, and Farm Links.
Pigford knows what it means to be engaged.
He worked to rebuild a four-block area in Ensley after meeting a pastor there.
He’s active in Create Birmingham – an organization focused on promoting the arts and culture.
Pigford uses his profession to transcend designing things.
“Architecture and design begin with listening to your client, to the people who will be most affected by the work. To find out what the possibilities are,” he said. “Then out of intentions and serious listening, solutions and ideas begin to bubble up. Architecture is thinking about the same thing in different ways. Exciting things always happen when you listen.”
Exciting things like a fruit and vegetable garden in Kingston, a neighborhood in the industrial area east of downtown Birmingham.
“Two years ago, a group called Holistic Neighborhood selected the Kingston neighborhood to receive their support,” he said. “The neighborhood garden is in the early stages, but residents see it as something they can do together to help their health, responsibility and improve the overall perspective of the city. This garden has evolved into people improving their lives together through hard work along with clear intentions. Now the entire neighborhood of Kingston has the opportunity to become a part of the garden vision.”
Architecture Works headquarters is available to nonprofits to use as a place to meet and plan. Impact Alabama, Create Birmingham and other groups have used the space.
Pigford is a board member of the Alabama Architectural Foundation, American Institute of Architects, Regional Cultural Alliance, Birmingham Center for Affordable Housing and Cahaba River Society, to name a few. Such engagement, he believes, is essential to helping a community reach its fullest potential.
“I don’t think of what I do as helping people, I think of it as a blessing to my life – to have the opportunity to work together with residents, and to improve quality of life in our region, it is all a blessing,” he said.
