Designed for a small urban site on Madison Street, a primary street in downtown Huntsville, Alabama, The Rahmati Law Office is a new 7,932 square foot facility, housing a law firm on the second floor, and a future tenant space on the ground floor. The architects were challenged by the building owner to design a facility which would provide historic aesthetic reinforcement to a stretch of downtown which had become somewhat architecturally weakened in recent years. Adjacent to the Historic Twickenham Residential District, various city ordinances imposed a number of challenges on the project, but careful adherence to those requirements, as well as the building material selection and application resulted in a new structure which knits neatly into its context, yet establishes a grand presence. The owner conveyed a fondness for stone masonry, yet wanted to achieve beauty within a reasonable budget. For this reason, the architects utilized Arriscraft Masonry Units with a “rock face” finish as the primary front façade material and with great care in detailing, introduced a slurry faced brick and cast stone on the remaining building facades to preserve the overall rugged and refined appearance of the building as a whole.
