Spotlight on Atlanta Projects: Women in Architecture

Celebrating Women's History Month with the Young Architects Forum of Atlanta

Thursday, March 23, 2023

Featured projects

Forest Park Middle School

Heli Shah, Assoc. AIA
Cooper Carry

The new Forest Park Middle School is a 290,0000-square-foot, three-story facility for grades sixth through eighth. It features a flexible and future-ready learning environment and a myriad of specialty and support spaces for student success. The two-story light lantern anchors the entrance to the main intersection, creating a warm and welcoming feel into the new education experience. Collaborative and project-based learning are at the core of the facility, with maker spaces for each grade level; Career Technical and Agricultural Education programs for hands-on learning; and an open research-based, two-story media center with a broadcasting lab conducive to independent learning.

Images: Cooper Carry

Pride by Design

Sarah Nelson-Woynicz, AIA
HKS, Inc.

Pride by Design is a nationally growing, Atlanta-based, and grassroots based platform created to bring visibility to and amplify the voices of LGBTQIA+ designers and architecture professionals. Started in October of 2022, Pride by Design is currently hosted through Instagram and expanding into a new website (coming soon!). Through the power of storytelling, Pride by Design has recently had the opportunity to expand beyond the blog by joining and hosting conversations connecting across the country.

Ecovillage

Heather Potts Lang, AIA
Potts Lang Architects

Emily Mosbaugh
Student

Heather leads a senior design studio that explores solutions for intentional community living in the context of an ecovillage. Case study explorations, guest lectures, field trips, and design charrettes guide our explorations of innovative living solutions. The Living Community Challenge by the Living Futures Institute provides a metric to evaluate our success. After establishing the initial goals and priorities of the community, the studio collectively selects a property for the ecovillage. As part of the master planning process, the group explores the far-reaching effects public policy has on a community. Members of the studio serve as the City Planning Commission, dividing into departments and holding regular City Planning Meetings to develop policy. Zoning regulations and municipal codes are reimagined to better serve the people and the environment through the development, growth, and maintenance of the community and with attention to each petal of the Living Community Challenge: place, water, energy, health + happiness, materials, equity, and beauty. Once a master plan and public policy is developed, individual students explore inventive housing solutions and reimagine a variety of approaches, typologies, systems, and details, all of which must support the established community priorities.

SCAD 44 and 45

Marissa Swanson, Assoc. AIA
Potts Lang Architects

SCAD 44 and 45 (formerly known as the SCAD Spring Street project) are two mixed-use student housing towers, part of a two-phase project. Located on Spring Street on the north end of Midtown.

It is a design-build project with Clayco as the contractor. The design architects are Jen Wilkins and Gwynn Zivic with Mackey Mitchell (out of St. Louis), and LJC is the architect of record. The principal-in-charge is Amy Luchun, with Marissa as the project manager during CA, totaling four women leading the efforts on the architect’s side!

Phase 1 (SCAD 44) opened in September 2022, adding 581 beds (155 units), a full-service dining center, a convenience store, resident offices, and a parking garage. Phase 2 (SCAD 45) will complete in July 2023, adding 402 beds (105 units), a 500-seat auditorium-style theater, black-box theater, academic areas, workshops, and maker spaces, a rooftop pool, and a fitness center. In total, the project cost is $130M and 382,000 SF.

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