Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has unveiled the design for One Centennial Yards, the first ground-up tower at the Foster + Partners and Perkins&Will-designed Centennial Yards master plan in Downtown Atlanta.
Envisioned in partnership with Atlanta’s Goode Van Slyke Architecture (GVSA), One Centennial Yards will provide 28 stories and over 500,000 square feet of office space. The tower comprises three slender towers. Its façade is inspired by the industrial and railroad heritage of Downtown Atlanta. It features 19,000 square feet of amenities and 21,980 square feet of outdoor spaces. One Centennial Yards is designed to provide open-air environments on every floor, with terraces on every level, large retractable doors on the building’s amenity floor, and landscaped rooftops. The building was designed with the post-pandemic workspace in mind, providing tenants with opportunities to gather and connect outdoors.
“We are thrilled to be the architect for One Centennial Yards, the flagship commercial landmark that will define the heart of Centennial Yards,” said Paul Danna, partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. "Our design is built upon the market’s desire for flexible, efficient and amenitized environments, and draws inspiration from the rich industrial history of Downtown Atlanta. Prioritizing health and wellness throughout the building, the design includes numerous open-air environments through a series of terraces on each floor that provide alternative workspaces and expansive views of the city."
These qualities are a fitting reflection of the 50-acre Centennial Yards development, which will bring 12 million square feet of creative office space, retail, hotel, mixed-use housing, public open space, a sports-entertainment district, and an innovation campus. For a long-neglected and underutilized section of Atlanta known as the “the gulch”, the master plan reinvigorates the area with a people-focused, walkable, and mass transit-oriented environment that is simultaneously connected to the city’s past.
Previously on Archinect: Foster + Partners master plan for Atlanta’s Centennial Yards revealed
7 Comments
with "designs" like this, it seems like architects want to be replaced by AI sooner rather than later
Well, its probably less ugly than what HOK, KPF or Gensler would have done.
not saying it's bad, just that an ai could produce this in 2 seconds.
Interesting point. I assume your critique is mainly of the building’s mostly featureless facade. A few thoughts that come to mind in response: The original goal of Modernism (before it was reduced to a mere stylistic preference) was to provide more-or-less generic solutions for the accommodation of large groups of people, whether for housing, workplace, or otherwise, in the context of a severe housing shortage, material scarcity due to war, and other looming societal problems. I.e. utilitarian ‘machines for living.’ The generic appearance of Modernist buildings is an expression of the utilitarian design ethic. Or at least it was, before it became a sort of fashion statement. I’m not the biggest SOM fan, but I know that they have deep Modernist roots and know their history. They’re probably more concerned about the quality of the workplaces that they’re creating here than about making a cute facade composition. There may be far more going on ‘under the hood’ in this project as far as space planning, site planning, building systems than you are giving it credit for. Given SOM’s likely very high fees, I think it’s safe to say that there are. Moreover, I think you may have an inflated understanding of what AI can do right now in the design space. Devising legible, clean, adaptable, human-centered plans for large complexes is very hard. There are innumerable subtle micro-decisions to be made throughout the process that are difficult to define variables for. I’m willing to bet that the state-of-the-art AI plan generator can churn out some solutions to this design prompt in 2 seconds that might look acceptable at first glance, but would then take months of human cleanup and revisions afterward. You’re still probably better off letting some skilled, experienced architects and engineers just solve the problem from first principles.
First time posting here and Archinect deleted all of my line breaks :( Sorry for the illegible block of text
that's ok, paragraphs can have multiple sentences.
I live walking distance to this project site. I'll be glad when something finally happens at this large sunken parking lot. Maybe it will help my property value lol. Seems somewhat like another Atlantic Station type project. Will take forever before whole project is complete.
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