Title: Georgia Tech Price-Gilbert Crosland Tower
Location of Proejct: Atlanta, GA
Project Completion Date: Phase 1- December 2018, Phase 2- March 2020
Firm Name: BNIM / PRAXIS3

Short Description: As many campus libraries face the dual challenge posed by aging facilities and an increasingly digital academic landscape, the Georgia Tech Library project proposes an evolution towards a “knowledge-driven” university. While fully embracing the term “library” it seeks to transcend its narrow role as a “space for books” towards an active agora embracing a plurality of voices and encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration across multiple platforms: print, tactile, digital, and human. This library illustrates how to expand access to print collections via innovative partnerships, thereby freeing up space for human collaboration and scholarship in a digital age.

Architect's Statement: The design team endeavored to create a suitable vessel for the Library’s innovative programmatic aspirations, and to achieve this each of the Library’s two buildings required a different approach. At Crosland Tower, the challenge was the transformation of an introverted building used as a storehouse for books into an inspiring and outward-facing place for people. The design team took its cues from the configuration of the adjacent Price Gilbert building, which provided a balanced mix of two-story reading rooms overlooked by lower-ceilinged adjacent spaces. Additionally, Price Gilbert’s solar orientation was optimal, with extensive glazing along the southern and northern exposures but opaque walls toward the east and west, providing access to daylight and views while minimizing undesirable low-angle daylight penetration. These design moves informed the interventions at Crosland Tower, where new floor openings were strategically located to create multi-story collaboration spaces. Additionally, the brick-clad exterior walls on the north and south facades were replaced with high performance glazing systems, featuring an external sunshade designed to maximize daylight harvesting, reduce glare and solar gain, and maintain views to the campus beyond. For Price Gilbert itself, the challenge was to re-tool a mid-twentieth-century library building for twenty-first-century needs while maintaining the architectural integrity of P.M. Heffernan’s 1953 design, one of the finest examples of international style architecture on Georgia Tech’s Campus. To achieve this, the original design was left primarily intact, with interventions focused on improving building performance and the integration of information technology infrastructure.

In pre-societal times the project site’s region was heavily forested, and Georgia Tech’s Landscape Master Plan calls for a harmonious reestablishment of this environment within the urban campus. The Plan has led to the contiguous interconnection of drainage basins as a vegetated environment called the Eco-Commons, forming the basis of a campus-wide approach to stormwater management and wildlife habitat with the goal of reducing runoff by 50% overall. The library is situated on a ridgeline, and its northern grove of trees is the starting point of one branch of the Eco-Commons. Since the buildings were reused, no net change in vegetation was caused by the renewal project. Landscaped areas disturbed by construction activities were replaced with climate-appropriate plantings in accordance with campus landscape standards.
The library buildings occupy an important pedestrian crossroads on campus, and the design re-establishes a previously severed north/south route. The newly opened crossing frames views between the historic south campus and the contemporary north campus and encourages pedestrian and bicycle movement between them.
The team’s approach to wellness focused on the benefits of connecting with the outdoor environment in an urban setting. The library’s renewal introduces several new outdoor spaces, including a tree-shaded southern plaza, a northern seating edge facing onto a much-beloved grove of trees, a unique three-season screened porch, and two seventh-floor terraces facing the Atlanta skyline. Inside the library, users are never far from natural daylight and views of Georgia Tech’s leafy campus and the city beyond.

Design for Energy:
Initial analyses suggested an approach centered on improving envelope performance at openings, harvesting natural daylight, and highly efficient building systems. The Institute provided actual occupancy data for the existing facility indicating that peak building population (winter) had an inverse relationship to peak cooling demand (summer), supporting a tonnage reduction to appropriately meet demand. Taken together, these strategies resulted in a 60% EUI reduction (Existing Building: 121 kBtu/sf vs. Modeled Building: 47 kBtu/sf) despite the building’s occupant count nearly doubling from 1,250 seats to 2,360 seats.

Design for Wellness:
The team developed three distinct but complementary approaches to wellness. One, the library renewal introduced several new outdoor experiences, including grade-level plazas, a unique three-season screened porch, and two roof terraces with skyline views, connecting users to multiple outdoor environments. Secondly, the design re-established a major north-south campus artery, encouraging pedestrian and bicycle movement. Third, the design of the mechanical systems provides opportunity for widening the thermal comfort dead-band from tightly controlled setpoints, both as an energy-saving strategy and as a boon to occupant health.

Design for Water:
Storm runoff from the library’s roof is routed to the campus’ 1.4-million-gallon rainwater capture cistern near the building. The reclaimed graywater is used by several buildings, including the Library, for toilet flushing and irrigation. Along with the incorporation of high-efficiency fixtures, this resulted in a 91% reduction in water usage by the Library. The building also leverages an adjacent building’s solar hot water system to augment the hot water supply.