Bird-friendly home windows put in on UAB’s new Genomic building [PHOTOS]

Here is a cringe-worthy statistic. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, almost one billion birds die a 12 months within the U.S. colliding with glass home windows. It is the second main explanation for fowl mortality.

To assist begin addressing this downside, UAB has lately put in bird-friendly glass home windows at its new Altec Styslinger Genomic Medicine and Data Sciences Building.

Alabama Audubon: An enormous deal

“This is a huge deal. When I found out that the new Genomics building was gonna have bird-safe glass on it, I couldn’t stop smiling for a week.” 

Lianne Koczur, Science and Conservation Director, Alabama Audubon

This ground-breaking venture was years within the making due to a partnership between UAB Sustainability and Alabama Audubon.

UAB Sustainability Director Bambi Ingram first began working with Alabama Audobon after they requested to do fowl surveys on campus by means of their volunteer fowl monitoring program, Project Safe Flight.

“They’ve been doing it for about three years. They send volunteers out all over the city, not just UAB, in the early morning, during the spring and the fall migrations. They look, at the sides of buildings and underneath bushes and things like that, to find stunned, injured or dead birds. With the data they’ve been able to let us know what our real problem points are on campus.”

Bambi Ingram, Director, UAB Sustainability  

Six-story curtainwall spanning 50,000 sq. ft. 

One of the methods to forestall birds from colliding into buildings is by putting in bird-friendly glass like UAB has on the Genomics Building.

If you haven’t made it over to UAB to see the glass set up alongside 19^th Street and seventh Avenue South, it’s aesthetically pleasing and destined to be a landmark right here in The Magic City.

The design? A double helix, after all.

Williams Blackstock Architects offered us with extra particulars:

• They have included etched glass with a fowl safety frit into the building’s 6-story curtainwall, which spans almost 50,000 sq. toes
• The fowl safety frit consists of acid-etched dots on the outside glass floor, designed to make the glass seen to birds to forestall collisions whereas sustaining the readability and aesthetic enchantment for people inside

“This project serves as a potential model for future construction, not just on the UAB campus but elsewhere, demonstrating that environmental considerations can be effectively integrated into the design process. Furthermore, it opens the door to retrofitting existing buildings with similar sustainable features, extending the impact beyond new construction.”

Binx Newton, Principal, Williams Blackstock Architects

Next steps: extra monitoring, extra bird-friendly glass installations

Want to know how one can assist shield birds from glass window collisions?

Audubon’s Koczur offered us with an inventory:

At UAB, Ingram advised Bham Now she appears to be like ahead to creating bird-friendly glass home windows as a part of the varsity’s general city conservation effort.

“People don’t think about their urban areas as being a place where you need to encourage habitat but we do. We know that our urban environment is also a place where we can encourage native plants and birds and animals to share the space with us.”

Lianne Koczur, Science and Conservation Director, Alabama Audubon

Have birds collided with home windows in your workplace or home? Tell us what you have got accomplished to forestall it by tagging us on social media at @bhamnow