ATLANTA—Stevens & Wilkinson recently completed the redesign and historic rehabilitation of the empty David T. Howard School into a modern middle school in the heart of Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward neighborhood.

The $52 million project, which began in early 2017, features the renovation of an existing 100,000-square-foot historic classroom building and 108,000-square-feet of new construction, including an administrative wing based on an originally designed element that was never built, a four-level classroom addition, media center, auditorium, music wing, and kitchen and cafeteria.

Stevens & Wilkinson served as lead architecture and engineering firm in collaboration with Lord Aeck Sargent who provided historic rehabilitation, landscape design expertise and building skin design.

“The most unique part of this project is the rejuvenation of a building that is nearly 100 years old,” says Bill Polk, principal and vice president of Stevens & Wilkinson. “The challenge was to fit a modern school program into one of the city’s most historic intown neighborhoods, while designing an addition that respects the historic qualities and doubles the square footage.”

The design team’s approach focused on the existing plan diagram to ensure the building’s historic features, including brick details, interior plaster and terrazzo materials, were maintained. The new addition connects to the existing building with elements that keep the existing building’s brick visible and joins all the building’s components.

“Great care was taken to design sensitively around the existing structure to highlight the attributes, while at the same time creating a new identity for the contemporary facility,” says Polk. “The site design activates the urban setting and reconnects several pedestrian paths and bike trails that have come to define this area of the city.”

The school is a four-story concrete frame building with brick cladding. The floor plan is a simple “U” shape with corridors connecting the classroom wings. There are four stair towers, one at each corner of the building, expressed on the exterior by taller walls and decorative brick and stone details. The main entrances along the bottom of the “U” are also identified by decorative brick and stone details.

The existing classroom building reflects the original layout as much as possible, and the new classroom wing consists of core, science, and music classrooms; the kitchen and cafeteria; and an auditorium.

The project also features a significant renovation to the existing gymnasium, built 20 years after the original building. The gym’s original steel windows were refurbished; the gym and stage floors were replaced with a wooden sports floor; the original brushed aluminum high bay light fixtures were refitted with high output LEDs; the original wood benches on steel brackets were lightly sanded and sealed; and the locker rooms were redesigned to provide modern facilities and a weight room.

The school, which sits on 7.5 acres of land donated by David T. Howard, a former slave who became one of Atlanta’s first Black millionaires, was first opened as the David T. Howard Grammar School in 1924 by the City of Atlanta on the block bound by what is now John Wesley Dobbs Ave., Randolph, Irwin and Howell streets in the city’s Old Fourth Ward neighborhood. The original design was built in two phases – 1924 and 1928 – with some portions of the original design left unbuilt.

Before the original school closed in 1976, it was attended by a number of prominent African American leaders and figures, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Atlanta’s first Africa-American mayor, Maynard Jackson; Olympic gold medalist Mildred McDaniel Singleton; and NBA star Walt Frazier.

“Even after the building was shuttered as a school, Atlanta Public Schools understood the historical and cultural significance of the building to the city and neighborhood,” said Jere J. Smith III, AIA, director of capital improvements for Atlanta Public Schools (APS). “The school board reaffirmed over and over the value of this school and continually made the decision to keep the building, even as the option to tear down and build new was considered.”

After 1976, portions of the building and the site were used as ad hoc administrative space, APS facilities office space, school archives, ROTC and Head Start programs. Additionally, APS considered several alternate uses for the facility over the years, including the APS central office and affordable housing for teachers.

Founded in 1919, Stevens & Wilkinson is a full-service architecture, engineering and interior design firm committed to providing clients with “Smart Design Solutions.”

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ATLANTA— A $9 million renovation of Russ Chandler Stadium, the home of Georgia Tech baseball has begun. JE Dunn Construction is the general contractor on the project, and Collins Cooper Carusi/Populous is the architect.

The project involves upgrading amenities and heightened experiences for fans and student-athletes. The demolition of an existing one-story building paves the way for construction of a 25,379-square-foot, two-story structure. The new facility will include three indoor batting tunnels, indoor pitching lab, event hall space, concessions and roof terrace. Interior renovation of 1,618 square feet will include new suites and ticket booth.

The concourse level will feature an atrium that also functions as a Georgia Tech Baseball Hall of Fame. It will be the first thing fans see when they enter the stadium—an iconic point of entry—intended to serve as both a welcome and a celebration. The atrium is also designed to convert into a 40-seat teaching auditorium on non-game days.

Other features include a new outdoor plaza; a new high-tech scoreboard; all-new, expanded restroom facilities and concessions (including a premium club area); a new alumni locker room; and an expanded training facility that will be open year-round for Tech players, and available to alumni/Major League Baseball players during the offseason.

To greatly enhance player development functions within the stadium, renovations will also include a training center, three 20-foot-wide batting cages, two 10-foot-wide pitching tunnels, and a video analysis room. The batting cages and pitching tunnels will be divided by retractable netting with turf flooring and a raised pitching mound.

With 400-plus student-athletes across 17 varsity sports, Georgia Tech competes at the highest level of intercollegiate athletics as a member of NCAA Division I and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), while also developing young people who will change the world. Georgia Tech has long been a leader in innovation in college athletics with the NCAA CHAMPS/Life Skills Program (known as the Total Person Program at GT), commitments to athletics scholarships until a student-athlete graduates and the use of virtual reality in recruiting among the many concepts that originated on The Flats.

The improvements are aimed at supporting player development, enhancing the fan experience, and celebrating the Yellow Jackets’ rich baseball history. The team has won five national championships during their illustrious history (four in football – 1917, 1928, 1952 and 1990; one in women’s tennis – 2007), appeared in two Final Fours in men’s basketball (1990 and 2004) and three College World Series in baseball (1994, 2002 and 2006). Combining world-class education with top-notch athletics, Georgia Tech has produced 87 Academic All-Americans.

The project is slated for completion before next baseball season.

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ATLANTA — With a completion date slated for July, the new Tuskegee Airmen Global Academy in Atlanta will soon open for the 2019-2020 academic year.

General contractor JE Dunn Construction celebrated the placement of the final steel beam in the framing of the new elementary school for Atlanta Public Schools (APS) in mid-March. Construction on the $27.6 million project began in July 2018.

The “topping out” ceremony included workers, vendors, suppliers and APS representatives who scrawled their signatures on the eight-foot symbolic beam. Topping out celebrations are customary in building projects, signaling that buildings under construction have reached their maximum height, with façade and interior work to proceed.

The new three-story structure—which replaces a 44-year-old facility that will be preserved for another use—will give the school greater street visibility and provide an enriched learning environment.

The 104,000 square foot Tuskegee Airmen Global Academy will accommodate a full-time enrollment of 753 and include a main entry/lobby space with a gallery, media center, cafeteria, gymnasium with stage, specialty classrooms, STEM and flight simulator labs, and outdoor lab/classroom space.

JE Dunn Senior Project Manager Jackie Avello says the project is unique in that there is a “focus on STEM curriculum and a design that captures the aspect of aviation to show the history of the Tuskegee Airmen.”

The Tuskegee Airmen was a group of African-American military pilots (fighter and bomber) who fought in World War II. They formed the 332 Fighter Group and the 47^th Bombardmen Group of the United States Army Air Forces. The name also applies to the navigators, bombardiers, mechanics, instructors, crew chiefs, nurses, cooks and other support personnel.

All African-American military pilots (who trained in the U.S) did so at Moton Field, the Tuskegee Army Air Field, and were educated at Tuskegee University, located near Tuskegee, Alabama. The group included five Haitians from the Haitian Air Force, and one pilot from Trinidad in addition to a Latino airman who was born in the Dominican Republic.

Avello says the biggest challenge of this project was “working in an established neighborhood on a very tight sight. This required a precise scheduling of deliveries,”

The project will also deliver new parking areas, play field, exterior lighting and signage, landscape and hardscape areas, covered walkways to the building entries, and improved bus and carpool circulation.

Headquartered in Atlanta, JE Dunn Construction, founded in 1924, is the 17^th largest domestic general building contractors in the United States. The company provides construction management services through 22 offices nationwide and works in an array of sectors including health care, higher education, K-12, commercial, industrial, manufacturing, mission critical, and aviation.

Atlanta-based Collins Cooper Carusi is the project’s architect of record.

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ATLANTA — As students begin to head back to school, safety and security concerns are among some school district officials’ top growing priorities and concerns across the Atlanta Metro area.

The Fulton County school district, for example, is investing in Avigilon, a high-tech video surveillance system that will be installed in over 105 public school buildings at a cost of $4.6 million, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“The basic idea is to have one place to collaborate on emergency situations,” said Paul Hildreth, safety coordinator for Fulton County Schools, to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Safety comes in all forms — weather advisories, traffic alerts, as well as criminal activity.”

In addition to adding video surveillance, emergency alert systems, and more police and safety officers in Atlanta Metro school districts, recent construction projects like those in DeKalb County have incorporated several safety and security features across the district.

Fulton County is reportedly the fourth-largest school district in the state and has the funds for Avigilon’s elaborate system, but safety is an expense for all Metro school districts regardless of size. Some districts, like Gwinnett, Clayton and Henry counties, added more school police officers. Others like DeKalb County, which is Georgia’s third-largest school system, have invested $15 million in safety and security improvements in schools across their district.

Twenty metal detectors will be installed initially in five high schools throughout the district via a pilot program: Cross Keys High School (Region 1), Lakeside High School (Region 2), Stone Mountain High School (Region 3), Martin Luther King Jr. High School (Region 4), Towers High School (Region 5).

DeKalb County is investing $230 million into new facilities and additions, which will include two new elementary schools, in order to counter overcrowding in what is known as the Cross Keys Cluster, according to its website.

According to DCSD board meeting notes, the new construction of school buildings now includes roll-down doors that help to increase security if a non-authorized individual enters the school premises.

A report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution contributed to this report.

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ATLANTA — The Emory University Hospital Tower has been awarded LEED Silver certification (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) by the U.S. Green Building Council. It is the first Emory Healthcare building to be LEED certified at Emory.

Known as the most widely used green building rating system in the world, LEED provides the framework to create healthy, highly-efficient and cost-saving green buildings. LEED certification is a globally recognized symbol of achievement of sustainability.

The $400 million, 450,000-square-foot Emory University Hospital Tower, located at 1364 Clifton Road across from the current hospital, opened for patient care in the summer of 2017. The building meets high standards for air quality, energy efficiency and for using locally sourced materials. Its sustainable, inspirational and collaborative environment promotes healthy lifestyles, learning and community.

“Achieving LEED Silver certification is a testament to the hard work and dedication by our planning, design, architectural and construction teams in supporting sustainability,” says Bryce Gartland, MD, CEO of Emory University Hospital and Hospital Group President for Emory Healthcare. “This building saves on energy, water, and other resources while supporting human health, which creates a positive environment for all of those who work and receive care in this space.”

Buildings pursuing LEED certification earn points across several categories such as location and transportation, water efficiency, sustainability, materials and resources, energy and atmosphere, indoor environmental quality, innovation and more. Based on the number of points achieved, a project then earns one of four LEED rating levels: Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum.

Key elements in the design and construction of the Emory University Hospital Tower include the following sustainable features:

• Project site located in close proximity to basic services such as restaurants, stores and public transit to encourage building occupants to walk instead of drive
• Low-flow indoor water fixtures reduce water consumption by an estimated 20 percent
• Energy-efficient exterior glazing systems allow for daylight to reach core areas throughout the building
• Materials used contain recycled and regionally manufactured content
• Energy-efficient features that allow for more than 20 percent energy savings
• Over 95 percent of construction waste recycled
• Special focus on indoor environmental quality for improving occupant health and well-being of employees
• Lead- and mercury-free facility
• Recycling program implemented

Since the recycling program began at the Emory University Hospital Tower, an average of nearly 30,000 pounds of cardboard and white paper are being recycled each month. The hospital’s Environmental Services team is responsible for collecting the recyclable material and taking it to a designated bin for pick-up.

“LEED Silver certification places Emory Healthcare and the Emory University Hospital Tower in a category above many others when it comes to design and building construction for hospitals,” said David Pugh, vice president for facility and space design for Emory Healthcare. “We are excited to receive this recognition and know it signifies Emory Healthcare’s commitment to green building design now and in the future.”

With a strong focus on sustainability, Emory University now has 34 LEED certified buildings that equal more than 4 million square feet. These buildings include: Candler Library, Candler School of Theology Phase I and Phase II, Claudia Nance Rollins Building, Emory Conference Center Addition, Health Sciences Research building, and James B. Williams Medical Education building.

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ATLANTA — Architecture and urban design firm Cooper Robertson has announced its selection to develop the next phase of a master plan for Georgia State University (GSU), as the leading academic institution prepares for growth and major new initiatives. 

The master plan work entails the reshaping and enhancement of the main downtown Atlanta campus as well as five satellite campuses throughout the state.

This next phase is a part of a medium- and long-term strategic plan in progress at the 52,000-student public university, which anticipates expanding to 60,000 students within the next decade. 

The main components of Cooper Robertson’s work include planning for more students living on campus in Atlanta as well as creating a unified identity for the entire Georgia State University (GSU) system, which has grown over the past several decades to include facilities across Georgia in Newton, Alpharetta, Dunwoody, Clarkston and Decatur.

Mike Aziz, AIA, Cooper Robertson’s stated that directly integrating these ‘Perimeter Colleges’ into the GSU umbrella is crucial to the university leadership’s strategic vision.

John Kirk, AIA, partner at Cooper Robertson, explained that the new planning effort aims to make GSU into a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

“Our challenge and our goal for the master plan update is to create connective tissues that better tie the central GSU location to its surroundings, addressing the push-pull relationships inherent in any urban institution, as we work to weave the main campus and the university’s formerly disparate parts into a more cohesive and legible fabric,” said Kirk.  

The GSU master plan update report and its specific recommendations is anticipated to be released later this spring.

Cooper Robertson has earned wide renowned for its campus projects and is currently implementing master plans at Longwood University in Farmville, Va., and Drury University in Springfield, Mo.

The firm has also developed long-term plans and designed buildings for the University of Delaware, North Carolina State, Ohio State, the University of North Carolina, Cal Tech, Yale University, Hunter College, Georgetown, the Duke University Medical School, among others.

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ATLANTA – SG Contracting Inc. cut the ribbon on Atlanta International School’s (AIS) new Primary School Learning Center on Aug. 30, 2018, establishing a space designed to enable the school’s mission to continue expansion.

Atlanta-based construction firm SG Contracting partnered with AIS in 2007 to work on multiple projects for the school.

Construction on the new learning center began on July 28, 2017 and was completed on July 27, 2018 with architectural firm Lord Aeck Sargent of Atlanta working on the project.

Atlanta International School is a Pre-K through 12 school known for its rigorous academic program, International Baccalaureate accreditation and a strong focus on preparing students for the future.

The overall goal of this project was to create a space that fosters collaborative learning options for students, starting at an early age.

The school seeks to facilitate the student’s learning endeavors by offering additional spaced that maintain connection and flexibility – essentially creating a foundation for creative and collaborative learning experiences.

Key design elements of the center include outdoor classrooms that open up opportunity for unique teaching methods, further expanding the creative minds of the students. The school also boasts shared work space areas in the corridors that can be used for multiple activities simultaneously.

“Flexible spaces are a huge trend in primary education today,” said Sachin Shailendra, president at SG Contracting Inc. “This new school was built around the idea that we should provide these adaptable spaces for students to learn. The student-centered design of this school promotes experiential learning at the highest degree. The outdoor classrooms, shared work areas, and the new courtyard provide many options for collaborative learning that we are seeing become the standard in education today.”

The school also provides several innovative technological features to guide students learning in the 21^st century.

These features include 75” 4k smartboards located in every classroom, allowing students to learn using the latest technology as well as using more traditional methods, like a white board.

There are charging carts for iPads used in every classroom and a key card security system and multidirectional cameras securing the school as well as every classroom.

Lastly, the new center presents a brand-new courtyard and outdoor classroom sport permeable pavers, allowing all rain water to simply drain through the ground and avoid large retention areas, allowing this space to be used for more purposes, including outdoor seating.

Staff feedback was heavily incorporated during the design and construction of this project with the staff involved in planning everything from the overall room layout, to where TVs and markerboards would be installed in the final space to the paint colors of the hallways.

“Every detail was a collaboration, down to the locks and coat hooks on the lockers, said Shailendra. “This joint process ensures that every aspect is intentional, and the building will fit multiple needs so it can be useful for decades to come.”

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ATLANTA — If one were to examine the docket of the recent Fulton County Board of Education meeting, it would seem the district is in the real estate business instead of the education business. The district, which serves the area of Fulton County outside Atlanta, green-lit a raft of pending capital projects at the Jan. 22 meeting, with approvals going to several area school projects.

Among those now basking in the verdant glow of their respective green-lights is a new STEM-based campus with a prospective launch date of August 2021. The board approved a $2.36 million agreement with Cooper Carry Inc., a national architectural that has a speciality in K-12 educational structures, for design and construction management services.

To that end, another complementary STEM campus was also under discussion and could possibly open in 2020 if the board’s apparent zeal for approving projects can be sustained. The science-, technology-, engineering- and mathematics-centric educational curricula is a boon to students interested in pursuing careers in healthcare, engineering and computer science, observed a report filed by local news outlet the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

According to the district’s Capital Plan 2022 posted on their website, the STEM campuses will “prepare students for college and career readiness through academics, career-related courses, internships and industry certifications.” Among other objectives, the district hopes the initiative will help “build strategic partnerships between Fulton County Schools and the business community that will provide industry experiences and internship opportunities for students.”

The projected budget for the districts 2022 capital plan is $976 million. This budget was created using revenue projections for a special-purpose local-option sales tax (SPLOST), a financing method for funding capital projects in the state of George via an optional 1 percent sales tax that counties may levy to build schools and other public structures.

The Fulton County School System has approximately 11,500 full-time employees, including 7,500 teachers and other certified personnel, who work in 99 schools and 15 administrative and support buildings. Altogether, 94,000 students attend classes in 58 elementary schools, 19 middle schools and 15 high schools as well as seven charter schools.

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