The Greater Birmingham Humane Society and Jefferson County Animal Control facility, designed by Birchfield Penuel, is a working building where daylight and durable finishes have to coexist. Outside, gabled canopies, covered walkways and fenced play yards gather around a pond at the edge of the woods. Inside, the photography moves through the public lobby, the kennel corridors, the surgical and laundry rooms, and the staff spaces, showing a civic facility built around the animals in its care and the people who look after them.