Title: Caddell Building
Location of Proejct: Atlanta, Georgia
Project Completion Date: 2016
Firm Name: BLDGS

Short Description: The Caddell Building is a complete interior/exterior adaptation of a 1950’s-era Marine Reserve motorpool for the School of Building Construction at Georgia Tech, housing flexible classroom spaces, administration and faculty offices, and collaborative PhD work areas. With limited means, the design strategy was to maximize daylighting and visibility of program to create campus engagement, and reduce long-term energy usage - both through the use of a whole-building shading structure. The canopy allows the transformation of a diminutive, background structure into a pedagogically meaningful, engagingly transparent, and highly efficient participant within an urban campus setting. The building is certified LEED Platinum.

Architect's Statement: While the functional assignment was to transform a 10,600sf existing building to create a new home for the School of Building Construction “that excels in collaboration, sustainability, and technology.” Taking advantage of its location on a primary campus path, the design prioritizes visibility and performance as a vehicle to promote the institute’s idea of campus and buildings as a holistic “Living Learning Laboratory” – students embedded in their environments without traditional boundaries.

The most significant architectural element of the project – a cantilevered whole-building shading canopy, utilizing the excess structural capacity of the existing concrete and steel frame – is a multi-purpose place-making response to the combined agendas of sustainability, community inclusiveness and openness, and economic efficiency. Its geometry is derived from sun angles at 8am and 5pm on the winter and summer solstice, tuning it to the environment on all four sides of the building, while simultaneously creating a “front-porch” entry and social space. And it is supported by a building structure whose embodied energy was already sequestered and available for re-use.

The “big idea” of the canopy provides downstream benefits. (1) By separating the shading from the building enclosure, we glazed the entire primary façade with cost-effective curtainwall without additional shades needed for glare control. (2) This clear glazing allows for daylight penetration deep into building - including classrooms, offices, collaboration areas, and hallways. (3) The canopy shades the building and also the north-south pedestrian corridor of the central campus – essential in Atlanta’s climate. (4) The detail of the canopy louvers – curved blades that bounce of light on the underside of the adjacent louvers – casts shadows from the naturally illuminated under-surface (normally a very dark surface) creating a diffuse and wondrous source of additional light for the spaces below. This incredible quality was discovered during design and modelling, and its effect still surprises us, changing dramatically under different lighting conditions.

The interiors are treated with a careful but straight-forward sensibility – exposing the dramatically deep beams and delicate upper level trusses, painted primer-red to highlight their presence. A new stair connects the two-story building around a social core, with seating on both lower and upper levels for studying and meeting. On the upper level, where offices line the exterior walls, a central collaborative work area is lit by a light shelf and clerestory glazing incorporated into the perimeter office wall – coupled with skylights to create a well-lit interior that still feels connected to shifting outdoor conditions.

To enhance the meaningful presentation of the exposed existing structure (relevant for a School of Building Construction), great care was taken to reduce and coordinate all ductwork, piping and exposed conduits as secondary to the structure. Acoustical treatments are integrated as well, to create a comfortable working environment, even with expanses of concrete flooring and the sense of immediacy and rawness that we worked to maintain as the primary quality of interior space.

Other sustainable features of this LEED Platinum project included capturing rainwater and tying it into to Georgia Tech’s underground stormwater management cisterns, and integrated displays monitoring the building’s energy use.