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Fourth Ward Office Project

Atlanta, Georgia

This 1.1 million-square-foot commercial high-rise building fronting the Atlanta BeltLine contains 1 million square feet of office space with street-level retail. Organized around a central thoroughfare that doubles as public civic plaza space, the building will create new urban connections between Old Fourth Ward Park and the rapidly revitalizing Atlanta BeltLine corridor.

Located on a significant site from the Civil War, the building design is organized around two portals. The first portal frames views of downtown, symbolizing a look towards the future, while the second portal connects to the historic Fourth Ward Park.

Targeting LEED Gold certification, the building will include sustainable design features that reduce energy consumption, address stormwater runoff, and encourage alternate forms of transportation. The main plaza will connect to the planned light rail station on the BeltLine, and the building will incorporate a bike path that connects to the BeltLine Bicycle Trail and inner-city bike trails beyond.

The high floor-to-floor heights along with the optimized floorplates are designed to maximize spatial daylight autonomy. Utilizing extensive daylight and thermal modeling, the design team is creating a building façade that will enhance building performance while maintaining daylight and thermal comfort for occupants.

The Fourth Ward Office Project responds to a number of site conditions, including the adjacent BeltLine. The dual towers introduce a link between the BeltLine and the emerging development, which negotiates the building’s grade to frame an engaged pedestrian pathway and parklike open space, the Appalachian Steps. The Steps move through the site and connect occupants and ground-level public users with parking, multi-modal transit, retail tenants, and other amenity zones. Kirsten Ring Murray, FAIA
Design Principal
Atlanta has unique opportunities and challenges. It’s a sunny climate, which means there is a terrific daylighting opportunity here, but that comes with the challenge of modulating solar gain. We wanted to be smart about engaging that daylight from a comfort and well-being perspective for internal users, while keeping the building energy efficient. The design navigates an interesting balance between letting light in and maintaining visual connections to the BeltLine and the surrounding landscape and community, while still offering protection from the elements. Tom Kundig, FAIA, RIBA
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