Birmingham Public Library has unveiled a revamped Create 205 Lab at its downtown Central Library, giving the more than 100 students who stream into the building every afternoon after school a space packed with 3D printers, Cricut machines, podcast and video production studios, esports equipment and recording spaces. The project, built through a partnership with Ed Farm, Shipt and Target, also carves out a LEGO wall, building stations and a reading area aimed at younger children who learn through play.
According to al.com, library officials say the project was inspired directly by the steady after-school crowd that fills the Central Library each day. Birmingham Public Library executive director Janine Langston said about 100 students come to the library after school, and that the upgrade was designed to add technology while recognizing that younger children learn through play. Langston said the lab supports children's creativity and learning, and that public libraries are more than books — they help build community, she said.
Candyce Monroe, Ed Farm's head of learning programs, said the students who show up at the library every day deserved a space built specifically for them, where they can design, record, build and create. Library leaders held student listening sessions to help guide the lab's design before the makeover got underway.
Volunteers Descend to Build Out the Space
About 100 volunteers from Target, Shipt and United Way Hands On helped complete the makeover the week before the lab's unveiling, assembling furniture, installing technology and painting a Birmingham skyline mural inside the space. The project grew out of Target's Bullseye Build initiative, which has funded community-space makeovers elsewhere in the country.
The lab's roots stretch back further than this latest renovation. In 2023, Birmingham-based Nucor Tubular Products donated $10,000 to sponsor the Create205 Learning Lab, which Birmingham Public Library described at the time as a program offering hands-on technology programming for young patrons across the city.
Classes for Seniors, Workshops in the Evenings
Library officials plan to host technology and computer classes for seniors during school hours, while workshops and other community programming could be offered evenings and weekends. The lab is expected to serve a wide range of community members beyond the after-school crowd that inspired it.
Ed Farm, the nonprofit behind the lab's design, was founded in 2020 through a partnership between Apple and the Alabama Power Foundation. The Alabama Power Foundation, Apple, Tech Birmingham and Birmingham City Schools launched the initiative that year, according to Alabama Power. Ed Farm describes its mission as creating leading-edge spaces within schools and communities that expand opportunity and creativity for learners of all ages, per Ed Farm, with offerings that range from podcasting and video production to Mac labs and gamified learning. The organization's Pathways program also runs an 11-week course for adult learners in the greater Birmingham area focused on digital skills and coding, Alabama Power notes.
Part of a Wider Birmingham Push
Create 205 Lab is the latest in a string of Ed Farm-backed spaces to open around Birmingham. In 2026, the city opened the North Star Learning Lab at the North Birmingham Public Library in partnership with Ed Farm, outfitting it with 3-D modeling tools, multitrack audio recording, a green-screen video backdrop and a four-person podcast studio. That space was expected to serve more than 1,600 learners and community members annually and is open to the public and learners of all ages, according to the Birmingham Public Library.
Schools have gotten the same treatment. P.D. Jackson-Olin High School recently cut the ribbon on JO Studio, a new innovation hub inside its library built in collaboration with Ed Farm, featuring a podcasting studio, a music recording console, a video production suite with green screen, 3D printers and T-shirt presses. The project was funded through a $10,000 prize that Dr. Christina Norman won for completing a scavenger hunt at Ed Farm's Future of Learning Summit, according to the Birmingham Times. Ed Farm has installed similar spaces at six other Birmingham City Schools campuses, including South Hampton K-8, Bush Hills STEAM Academy, Green Acres Middle School, Oxmoor Valley Elementary, Huffman Middle School and C.W. Hayes K-8, and the Birmingham Times reports Ed Farm plans to open technology hubs at West End Academy and Booker T. Washington K-8 before the end of the school year.
