Title: Glencastle
Location of Proejct: Atlanta, GA
Project Completion Date: July 17, 2020
Firm Name: Praxis3 architecture

Short Description: This renovation project takes three of Atlanta’s few remaining historic civic structures, converting formerly underused and abandoned structures to creative office and event spaces. The buildings, constructed from 1895 to 1910, include a vernacular Romanesque Stockade structure, and Stable and Blacksmith buildings that served the Atlanta Prison farm in the early 20th century. The structures are renovated to National Park Service standards for historic structures and have achieved Historic Tax Credit Status. In a city not noted for preservation, this project stands as a prime example of how historic assets can enrich and enliven their physical and cultural environments.

Architect's Statement: The Glencastle collection of historic structures dates to 1895 when a growing City of Atlanta erected a new city jail at what was then the edge of town. The original structure was a simple rectilinear stone building housing cells and few other creature comforts. It’s brutal nature caught the eye of the New York Times during a late 1800s corrections convention. City Fathers immediately began making plans for an expanded and more architecturally dignified building. The original stone structure was to be expanded and wrapped in more formal façade. The building, designed by a city employee and built by inmates, features a Romanesque appearance with a large classically incorrect portico (a result of early value engineering). In 1910 a new stable and blacksmith shop were added.

The new Stockade was quickly outgrown and jail functions were transferred in the 1920s to a new Downtown facility. The old buildings were sold to the Atlanta Public Schools and used as storage facilities. The building remained with APS until the 1980s, and in the 90s was temporarily converted to transitional housing and non-profit center. Operating housing in these inefficient buildings proved too costly and by 2000 the Stockade building was once again abandoned.

The architect has been honored to convert these singular historic structures to use as creative office and event space. The challenge to respect these complex historic buildings while creating modern utility included new historic window replacement and the sensitive addition of building systems. Details, materials, textures and other historic features have been meticulously preserved and highlighted.

The complex was originally approached by carriage along an extended stretch of Kalb Avenue. Construction of the Grant Park Elementary school in 1930, fifty feet away from the front of the building, and 1960s highway construction, demolishing much of Kalb, made its original siting all but invisible. The architect in collaboration with the neighborhood, City of Atlanta and nearby land-owners established a courtyard at the front of the building restoring the buildings relationship to the urban fabric and providing green space for the adjacent apartment building.

The buildings are currently knitted together by a series of pedestrian paths and spaces. The existing parking lot was reutilized to save resources. Site landscaping was reduced from its overgrown state and has been established in a more ordered manor, emphasizing relationships between structures. Several new public and private spaces are carved out from existing industrial uses giving new connectivity and amenity to the site.

In order to meet stringent requirement for Historic Tax Credits the building’s original elements were preserved and highlighted. Of special note are singular cast in place concrete details. Meant to resemble a rusticated stone structure these concrete elements were fabricated by prison inmates. The upper levels of the building utilized field-made concrete blocks. Research revealed the off-the-shelf Sears machine used to fabricate them.

Other details include elaborate plaster work at the warden’s first floor office and exposed stone throughout the structure. New windows take their que from those identified from an historical photo, though many building openings only utilized bars. The stable building was addressed in a minimal way, emphasizing the nature of its massive stone wall and small and somewhat random openings. To the casual observer these appear as voids emulating the original simple but powerful nature of the structure. Inside a forest of small wood columns were left substantially intact. Most contain some signs of over a century of wear by both humans and animals. Gypsum Board at the Blacksmith Shop was removed revealing the remnants of the original fire pit flues. Unique cast-in-place concrete trusses are also highlighted.

Overall this strategy of minimal intervention has revealed the buildings and their creators to be both intuitive and inventive and has preserved the building’s rough edges and stark contrasts. Its vernacular nature is exposed and somewhat ignoble history as a civic icon and place of incarceration remain unhidden. In a city that has destroyed much of its historic fabric these Atlanta buildings tell an important story of the city’s development and evolution towards the large, modern and vibrant metropolitan region that exists today.