UAB McMahon Residence Hall

Birmingham, Alabama

Size: 233,089 sf
Project Awards: ASLA Alabama 2021 People's Choice Award, ASLA Alabama 2021 Honor Award (General Design)

UAB’s McMahon Hall is a 720-bed residence hall building that includes a community living space, laundry facility, storm shelter, 250-seat dining hall, a street-level retail food option, and offices for Student Housing & Residence Life. McMahon Hall is considered the Phase II to neighboring Gold Hall, which was Phase I. The outdoor areas of McMahon Hall are meant to accommodate and enhance student life by providing relaxing spaces for residents and visitors to enjoy. Options for seating include soft seating groups, wooden platforms, movable tables and chairs, and swinging benches to provide a wide variety of lounging options. A small field is incorporated into the lower courtyard to allow for leisure activities to occur. The overall design picks up the radiating walks from Gold Hall, the Phase I residence hall across the courtyard, as well as other thematic elements and materials from the first new residence hall to help blend the two adjacent sites together and build campus connectivity. The unique site conditions created several challenges that the design team met with innovative solutions. Large slopes between Gold Hall to the North, and McMahon Hall to the south created potential stormwater issues for the new residence hall. An intricate system that includes a large cistern, concrete weirs with small bioretention basins, stone creek beds, and a larger bioretention basin in the lower courtyard was designed to capture the majority of rainwater on-site, as well as a large amount of condensate from the building air conditioning units. This water is then used to operate the irrigation systems for the site in an environmentally conscientious way.

Scope of Services
Architecture
Interior Design
Landscape