CLIENT: Atlanta Public School System
SIZE: 284,000 SF
COST: $18,777,000
LOCATION: Atlanta, GA
The 32-acre site for this consolidated school utilized existing high school and park property, The challenging site dropped a hundred feet from west to east in a series of terraces. In addition to the existing school building, other site constraints include a major trunk sewer which traversed the site. The building is divided into an academic wing and a physical education/ auditorium wing. Isolated evening and weekend uses utilize the remaining building space. A cafeteria and media center are centrally located. Satellite administrative offices, chair’s offices and faculty suite are dispersed throughout the building with glass partition walls that look onto the corridors enhancing security and hallway monitoring. Magnet School Classes (computer science) are located immediately south of the main entrance allowing students attending thee classes to disembark buses and proceed to class without disturbing classes in progress. The building is concrete frame with round columns and triangular three way pan slabs. Forty percent of the perimeter of the building is backed into the hillside, yet all classrooms meet the design objective of having windows. The remaining perimeter wall has an earth berm banked against it up to the first level window band. The “roof” is earth covered. There are two feet of gravel and granular soil fill over the academic wing and a foot of fill over long span areas. An exercise trail winds up the hill and around the roof with seven exercise stations. The project was developed as a joint venture of J.W. Robinson and Associates, with Dougherty, Fernandez, Marchant, Inc. Architects. The project received the 1991 CEFPI Citation Award.
