While the architecture of Edge on the Beltline is visually interesting with the obvious motif of striated materials, it’s the urban/site connections that drive the design to a successful outcome. The challenge for the design team at Edge on the Beltline was to design a cohesive community that worked at both the local and urban scale. This challenge was immediately apparent with two major street boundaries at vastly different elevations and two sections of the site separated by the Beltline.
The design started with the notion that it must address all public streets, despite the fact that Edgewood Avenue is an elevated bridge at this location. Additionally, the design team felt like it was important to connect the Edgewood sidewalk to the Beltline. Once the streets and site had been stitched together in the North/South direction the emphasis turned to the Beltline connections. The building is visually and experientially porous on the Beltline frontage, allowing residents to engage the Beltline in a multitude of ways. There are physical connections at grade from multiple access points or the pool deck. There are myriad view corridors intentionally framed from elevated amenity decks and private balconies. Finally, the design activates the beltline edge with a curated retail experience ranging from chef-driven restaurants to healthcare, allowing residents and the local community to engage with the architecture in a very meaningful way.
Amongst our clients, we see the recurrent trend of looking for a house to renovate or build new in the neighborhood they already live in. They love their neighborhoods, and they want to stay. Properties with the right potential seem to reveal themselves. The discovery of the perfect place could be on a daily walk, drive to work, or in this case, a private sale opportunity from a relocating friend. Our clients loved that this property backed up to an urban forest, had an east-facing flat front yard for a food-producing landscape, and a pool for intown grandkids.
Jones Pierce was engaged to reimagine the 60’s mid-century ranch, complemental to the lifestyle of the era it was built, into a space that would reflect how our modern, open-minded, stylish downsizers wanted to live. The 1962 house is in the National Register Historic District, one of the most restrictive character areas in the City, on an isolated mid-century infill street subjected to historic commission approval.
The subjective drama began when the client’s desire to evolve a home that appeared to provide the perfect framework for their vision of modern living, clashed with the Historic Preservation Commission’s desire to preserve consistent characteristics of architecture and site development within the district.
This 3200-square-foot new construction home sits on a gently rolling, heavily wooded, seven-acre property about 45 minutes outside of Atlanta. In this home, as with all of our projects, there is an emphasis on very site-specific design and seamless integration of the home with the outdoors with specific emphasis here on views to the small lake. Given the rural context, we wanted to balance the very contemporary forms with a more organic materiality that helps the house blend into its’ surroundings and give a more rustic, “raw” feel on both the exterior and interior.
The owners’ love of France inspired this Norman-style residence in Atlanta. Large, mullioned windows and archways lighten the massing and update the classical style. The three gables, turret and porte-cochère provide a visual progression to the front of the home, which is at the crest of the four-acre property. This contemporary interpretation of time-honored French architecture continues in the interior, which is open and light-filled with an emphasis on the flow and connectivity between rooms.
The interior architecture program is based on two cross axes. The entry axis leads from the foyer to the dramatic, two-story stair hall, accessing the lower and upper floors. A cross-axis through the entry on the front side, unites the library, foyer, music room and dining room. An interior gallery connects to less-formal spaces—kitchen, breakfast room and family room with adjoining loggia. The center mass is flanked by one-story wings for the master bedroom suite and a mudroom leading to the porte-cochère.
The arrangement conceals two garages and a storage area in the back. Three bays project from the rear of the residence and a pool cabana opens to a spacious terrace with oval pool. Doric columns and pilasters, a stately fireplace and vaulted ceiling imbue a classical formality to the loggia. Materials used, including the metal roof over the pool cabana and breakfast room, were selected to relax the overall sensibility from this perspective.
