This mass timber, 47,000 sqft visitor welcome center off of North Avenue on Georgia Tech’s campus aims to create a highly sustainable, welcoming environment that bridges Georgia Tech’s old campus with the bustling city of Atlanta. By focusing on the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the AIA Framework for Design Excellence goals, this project addresses many common problems with sustainable design and construction, while incorporating a number of new entertainment, study, and retail spaces into a significantly less dense area of the campus.
To minimize uncomfortable glare and maximize daylight potential, a kinetic facade was developed to cover the central portion of the building. The facade utilizes a series of wooden slats, hinges, and cables to allow for various amounts of shade based on the time of day and the angle of the sun. The Climate Studio tool was used to analyze the daylight availability and annual glare with the facade in four different conditions.
