Location: Sandy Springs, GA
Size: 206,000 sf
Status: Completed March 2018
Firm: Gensler Atlanta: Architecture, Interiors & Branding
Role: Designer, Architecture
Awards: 2018 Winner: Large Office, Interior Design Magazine Best of the Year Awards; 2018 Winner: Award of Merit, ENR Regional Best Projects 2018
Sustainability: LEED Silver
Photography: Jason O'Rear & Garrett Rowland
Mercedes-Benz USA Headquarters’ new glassy home in Sandy Springs, just outside of Atlanta, GA, is built on the idea of creating an open office environment to better enable communication, collaboration, and ultimately, innovation. Reinventing what it means to be an icon, the lower-profile project still prominently anchors its site. The larger floor plate encourages serendipitous interaction, and a light-filled atrium provides alternative workspace.
The architecture takes inspiration from the German auto-maker: Miesian in character with an unapologetic orderliness. The seemingly impossible simplicity presents a visual narrative of Bauhaus-inspired Modernism melded with today's most progressive thinking on workplace design. After all, it was Gropius who said "we want an architecture adapted to our world of machines, radios, and fast cars."
Location: Cartersville, GA
Size: 61,700 sf
Status: Completed October 2017
Firm: Gensler Atlanta: Architecture, Interiors & Branding
Role: Designer, Architecture
Awards: 2019 Winner, AIA Georgia Awards
Sustainability: LEED Silver, Well Building Pilot Facility
Photography: Connie Zhou
Located adjacent to an existing test manufacturing plant, Shaw Industries looked to bring together multiple commercial business units under a common roof to foster creativity and spark growth and innovation. The project provides a collaborative environment for designers, marketing, and innovation associates and showcases Shaw's design-thinking culture.
Within a simple massing that respects needed adjacencies to the existing plant, the multiple program elements seamlessly work together. A three-story atrium at the building's entrance provides connections between the varying business units and serves as an all-hands space. It also welcomes visitors to the public facing-program: a conference area and two showrooms. Collaboration spaces line the core with a flexible work environment just beyond.
The facade responds to the programmatic arrangement; zinc panels with window wall openings clad the work zones, while a zero-spandrel curtain wall brings light into the atrium and client-facing areas. To mitigate glare associated with the western-facing curtain wall, a screen wall sits outboard the building. Inspired by both the carpet-making process and the colors from Georgia clay, the screen wall went through computational analysis to find the ideal fin depth, spacing, and angle for most impact with the least material.
Location: Atlanta, GA
Size: Existing 100,000 sf + 5,000 sf addition
Status: Completed April 2019
Firm: Gensler Atlanta
Role: Lead Designer & Project Architect
Photography: Alex Arnett
Our entrepreneur client spotted a missing real estate market for growing tech companies, and saw potential in a ho-hum 1980's office building as the perfect place. The idea was to transform the building into a home for growing tech companies who have outgrown traditional co-working environments but aren't quite ready to sign a multi-year lease. Fully furnished office spaces are leased out on short terms with the ability to expand into adjacent spaces during growth periods. Our team was invited to participate in a design competition, winning with our scheme that drastically transformed the exterior and carefully planned out the interior.
The exterior transformation not only addressed out-of-date aesthetic choices of the 1980's but also poor urban design principals. The existing entry was angled, not quite oriented to the street. Our design includes a 5,000sf addition to square off the project and re-orient the entry towards the sidewalk and street. The addition also includes a stair connecting all 5 floors to shared social hubs and terraces, bringing outdoor space all the way up the building. The street-facing facades were entirely re-clad with efficient glazing and fins that light up at night. The remainder of the pink granite facade was simply covered with metal panel; a cost effective strategy garnering big impact. The building is a stark contrast of bright whites and gunmetal grays, making a bold statement while honoring classic tech.
The previously less-than-ordinary building is now an eye-catching anchor to the Buckhead community, offering a haven for growth and success beyond the tech incubator.
Location: Charleston, SC
Size: 76,000 sf
Status: Unbuilt, design early 2018
Firm: Gensler Atlanta
Role: Lead Designer
A new technology building in Charleston presented a unique challenge: how do we design a distinctly new building within a city rich with historic context? In a developing neighborhood just outside the historic district, our design needed to stand out while also seemingly fitting in. As a relatively large building for the area, we rejected an all-glass enclosure, and instead used a set of clean elements to create a composition.
The project is a representation of the future of the technology industry, what we saw as the how meeting the why. How being the code, the digi-sphere, reflected as one facade type. Why being the social mission of new tech: cross-cultural collaboration and bringing of people together. How and Why meets along the project's southern and eastern face, where the building expresses itself along the corner with a more open facade, terraces, and ground level entry.
Competition Entry, March 2019
In collaboration with Mario Gonzalez Barrera.
Organized by the NYC Department of Housing and AIANY, the Big Ideas for Small Lots NYC competition sought to address the challenges associated with the design and construction of affordable housing on underutilized City-owned land.
We rejected the notion that affordable housing needs to be standardized, inferior, and ubiquitous. We challenged zoning restrictions on an underutilized lot and instead guided our submission by principals of sound design. We aimed to provide modest apartments with usable open space and a shared sense of community and neighborhood pride.
Location: Atlanta, GA
Size: 165,000 sf
Status: Unbuilt, design 2015 - 2016
Firm: Gensler Atlanta
Role: Designer
In an invited design competition, Seven Oaks asked for proposals for a new Class A office project in Atlanta's rapidly growing Old 4th Ward neighborhood. Just down the street from the newly renovated Ponce City Market, 525 North aimed to provide additional creative loft office to the area but with the efficiencies of new construction. Our design proposal integrated the steep topography of the site in a lobby/retail corridor that also concealed a parking structure behind. The office floors offered generous and flexible floor plates, high ceilings, and access to plenty of light. The facade was designed to be sensitive to context but distinctly new. Mutli-story openings in a terracotta and metal frame met with fully glazed ground floors and premium floors above.
Gensler won the project and continued through concept design and city approvals. Although the community overwhelmingly supported the project, the site was ultimately sold off for a multi-family project.
Location: Sandy Springs, GA
Scope: Lobby & Plaza Repositioning
Status: Completed January 2017
Firm: Gensler Atlanta
Role: Designer, concept (2015)
Awards: 2018 Winner: Gold Award - Corporate Singular Space, 38th Annual ASID GA Design Excellence Awards; 2018 Winner: Recognition Best of Special Projects, IIDA Best of the Year
Photography: Alex Arnett
To stay competitive in the market, Columbia Properties enlisted Gensler's help to reinvigorate the public spaces at One Glenlake. The design team aimed to create an inviting and active experience with new amenities to support a workforce that craves a work/life balance. The lobby was transformed into a place to relax, work, or host a visitor. The closed off outdated cafe was opened up to the lobby and re-branded with an infusion of hospitality. A previously unusable outdoor space was transformed to an active and passive place of respite just adjacent to the office.
Just months after completion, the space was 100% leased.
Various Locations
Size: 20,000 sf - 35,000 sf
Firm: Gensler Atlanta
Role: Technical/Documentation (2014-2015)
Working with Zara's in-house design team in Spain, Gensler Atlanta has been responsible for the realization of multiple North American Zara stores. The client relationship is ongoing today.