Nestled in Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn neighborhood and Martin Luther King historic district, the Edgewood Center has been providing permanent affordable supportive housing for nearly 40 years. With this project, Edgewood Center now offers 50 units of supportive housing for people living with HIV/AIDS. The Center includes individual micro-units with private bathrooms and kitchens, shared living spaces, in-house clinic, bike storage, fitness, and community spaces all located around a daylit atrium space that shows off the building structure.
Edgewood Center is comprised of two adjacent historic buildings connected through amenity spaces and shared circulation. The historic buildings at 183 and 187 Edgewood Avenue were constructed by the Coca Cola Company between 1898 and 1904 as a headquarters, bottling facility and chewing gum manufacturing floor. In the 1950’s the roof at 183 Edgewood collapsed and the two upper levels were demolished. To accommodate Edgewood Center’s goals for expansion and to provide additional capacity, the project team conceived of reconstructing these upper two floors and stitching the two buildings back together.
The historic rehabilitation preserved existing character and the design for the new construction captured the spirit of the district utilizing heavy timber and masonry, controlling volume, proportions and rhythm. The project was awarded state and federal approval for Historic Tax Credits in support of the quality of design.
This project prepares the historic building for its next century of life creating a win for affordable housing production, a win for the historic district and a win for historic preservation.
The Melody exemplifies the transformative power of community, collaboration, and compassion as Atlanta’s first “”Rapid Housing”” initiative. Situated in South Downtown near the Garnett MARTA station and the newly constructed Greyhound Station, this innovative project repurposes a former parking lot into a thriving community of 40 micro-units, with 32 ADA-compliant units, all crafted from repurposed shipping containers. Completed in just four months, The Melody is strategically located to ensure residents have access to public transportation and essential services.
Each unit is thoughtfully designed with a bed, private bathroom, and kitchenette, offering residents more than just shelter—a stable foundation for rebuilding their lives. The community includes amenities like a communal garden, dog park, and shared gathering spaces. A community building houses additional amenities such as a kitchenette, offices, and laundry facilities, fostering a sense of belonging among residents.
The Melody represents a holistic approach to addressing homelessness, going beyond traditional housing models by creating opportunities for connection, stability, and reintegration into society. It stands as a model for future affordable housing projects, showcasing the power of public-private partnerships and innovative construction methods in providing equitable housing opportunities.
Named in honor of a woman who tragically passed away from an overdose near the site, The Melody serves as a poignant reminder that housing can be life-saving, reinforcing Atlanta’s commitment to addressing homelessness with dignity and compassion.
The history of the Goat Farm site has, over time, woven a rich tapestry of chaos and order. The task of bringing in 209 apartments and 48 artist studios would necessarily deposit a high concentration of order to the campus. Our design solutions were aimed at balancing that order through shape and form, while not attempting to camouflage the reality of the change, and by creating guides for the chaos that nature will inevitably bring over time.
Ten 5 Summerhill is a new 10-unit townhouse project within the rapidly growing Summerhill neighborhood of Atlanta. The project contributes to the neighborhood’s rich history as the latest addition to its urban revitalization efforts. Occupying a prominent corner lot, it sits at the intersection of Summerhill’s primary commercial thoroughfare and a local residential street, directly across from the main urban park. With a lot of only ¼ acre, the project brings much needed housing density via efficient site planning. In this strategic location, Ten 5 Summerhill serves as a mediation between the commercial core and residential zones of the neighborhood.
The site design emphasizes strong urbanism by prioritizing pedestrian traffic at the street front, while vehicular circulation is placed behind and further away from the corner. The townhouses are distributed across two buildings fronting each street, completing the site corner in an L-shaped orientation to maintain continuity of the urban edge at the intersection. Architectural materiality draws from the surrounding historical context, applied in a refreshed, contemporary manner. Unit plans prioritize spatial efficiency in a slim format to boost residential density and, thus, community vitality. Abundant outdoor spaces are incorporated to fully engage with the natural environment, maximize natural ventilation, and increase both the perceived and usable living space.
Designed for a young professional couple, their teenage daughter and two golden retrievers, the Honabach House is located on a quite residential street in Brookhaven, Georgia. The 1 1/4-acre site slopes down from the street to a small creek at the rear of the property. Mature hardwood trees create a beautiful wooded area over the back half of the site.
The project brief called for a 4-bedroom house, with an open kitchen, dining and living room spaces immediately adjacent to large on-grade outdoor entertainment areas. The brief also called for ample storage and mechanical spaces at the lower level. Working with the natural slope of the land, the design locates the bedrooms on the upper, entry level and the entertainment and storage spaces on the lower, on-grade terrace level. The design creates a 2-story house that appears as a smaller 1-story house from the street.
The upper-level bedrooms are organized into 2 parallel forms running perpendicular to the street. The guest room and a home office are positioned on the street side of the forms, and the main and daughter’s bedrooms are on the opposite sides, offering privacy and expansive woodland views. The space between the 2 parallel forms becomes a “see-through” entry foyer, allowing views through the house to the wooded site beyond.
From the upper-level entry an open light-filled stair leads to large terrace-level entertainment spaces with continuous floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a private courtyard space and pool.
This new construction home is on a corner infill lot in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood. In this home, there is an emphasis on site-specific design and seamless integration of the home with the outdoors. Careful consideration and emphasis of landscape design and elements was a priority here. The very exposed corner lot raised slightly above street level meant that most sides of the home are fairly visually exposed so it was even more important here than normal to insure that no elevation of the home was secondary in design or material. The glass “box” entry addresses the house’s corner condition. A play of varying floor levels in the home provides spatial interest and distinguishes room functions in the home without having to use walls to do so.
Despite large areas of window glass, passive solar design strategies such as very large overhangs, deep inset windows and careful window placement ensure great interior light though with relatively modest solar energy gain. On the side street elevation, a “floating” architectural frame element echoes a similar one on the front but remains open to provide solar protection to a second-floor rooftop deck. A large, architecturally integrated planter separated from the dining room by a seamless glass wall blurs the boundary between indoor and outdoor – bringing a sense of garden connection to a space that is raised well above grade level.
Olympic Place Courtyard House uses an L-shaped typology to create a structure that integrates elements of its cultural context, site, and program into a warm and inviting home for the family that lives there. The L-shape of the house was driven by the location of the existing trees and opportunities for harvesting natural daylight and was embraced because of the transparency it offered when circulation was pulled to the inner courtyard edge of the house. Overhangs along the courtyard are sized to allow for passive daylight, taking advantage of the site’s southern exposure.
The courtyard-facing circulation axes are punctuated at their intersection by a three-story space at the heart of the home. A stair wraps around this opening and enables the stack effect to pull warm air up and out of the house through operable windows at the top. The fireplace is another strong organizing element, rising from the foundation all the way through the cantilevered roof opening.
Stucco, cypress siding, and glass are the predominant materials. Stucco is used to emphasize the weight of the home’s plinth, and glass wraps around the main level of the house to allow the cypress-wrapped volumes to float above. Interior walls are pulled through each level to keep the facade open and the interior spaces legible and consistent through the transparent skin.
In addition to the passive sustainable design strategies described above, a geothermal heat pump system provides air at stable temperatures, minimizing the energy required to heat and cool the home.
Berkshire Terminus is located in the heart of Buckhead’s business district at the intersection of Peachtree Street and Piedmont Road. Surrounded by world-class office, hotel and residential high-rises; with easy pedestrian access to numerous restaurants, entertainment venues and a MARTA rail station. Berkshire Terminus has helped transform the district into a walkable, high-density live, work and play community, bringing premium-quality residential living to a traditionally office-focused corridor.
Innovative design is most evidenced in the integration of a mid-rise building within a high-rise environment. Connections to the existing garden plaza and streets enhance the pedestrian environment. An indoor-outdoor extension of the garden plaza gives residents and the public a view into the building’s amenity courtyard, which is oriented to highlight the Atlanta skyline.
The architectural design of Terminus speaks to the surrounding facades of polished, commercial office buildings and high-rise condominiums while at the same time using residential building materials and elements like warm wood accents and bright, colorful sunshades that add warmth and human scale to the Terminus community. The structure further humanizes the pedestrian community with townhouse-style front stoops lining Terminus Drive. These single entry spaces yield a feeling of place and add a residential-quality to the bustling business district. Electric car charging stations, ample bike storage, strong connectivity to the surrounding pedestrian sidewalk system and close proximity to bus and rail provide residents with a wide range of transportation options. A wide range of unit sizes and configurations accommodate a wide variety of lifestyles.
ICC-700 National Green Building Standard’s at Bronze Level are reflected in smaller private floor plans, enhanced community spaces, sustainable water retention. Berkshire Terminus transformed a traditionally office-focused corridor into a high-quality high-density, live/work/play community, making it a lively and engaging urban village day and night. A bridge over Highland Drive provides a gateway for people moving from the offices to entertainment venues along Peachtree.
