Title: Westside Paper
Location of Proejct: Atlanta, Georgia
Project Completion Date: 07/22
Firm Name: Perkins and Will

Short Description: In anticipation of the future BeltLine spur trail in West Midtown Atlanta, Westside Paper repositions a nondescript warehouse as a pedestrian-oriented development with neighborhood connectivity and an activated retail node. Strategic deconstruction of the buildings and excavation of the site introduce new view corridors, natural sunlight, and a variety of outdoor experiences while breaking down the industrial scale and exposing its structural and functional beauty.

Architect's Statement: In anticipation of the future BeltLine spur trail in West Midtown Atlanta, Westside Paper repositions a nondescript warehouse as a pedestrian-oriented development with neighborhood connectivity and an activated retail node. Strategic deconstruction of the buildings and excavation of the site introduce new view corridors, natural sunlight, and a variety of outdoor experiences while breaking down the industrial scale and exposing its structural and functional beauty.

East-west structural bays have been removed from the warehouse to provide public access to the future spur trail. These cuts divide the building into three parts – each with its own distinct character. The north buildings are clustered around a new excavated courtyard with amphitheater seating. The area is activated with 28,000 square feet of retail space and serves as a community destination. The rest of the development is office use distributed between the central and south buildings, which repurpose the existing loading docks as front porches. The central building has a new vertical office overbuild threaded into a portion of the existing structure, its modern aesthetic a counterpoint to the historic warehouse. The overbuild is designed to take advantage of city views.

Adaptive reuse has become associated with a specific architectural style in Atlanta, so we set out to do something different with Westside Paper. The design is shaped by the past industrial use, but the aesthetic is not defined by it. Old and new are intended to look different – revealing the building’s history, positioning its current use, and suggesting its future adaptability

The industrial warehouse, larger than a couple football fields and oriented north-south along the CSX rail spur, created a barrier between the neighborhood and the spur’s future pedestrian uses. Deconstructing a series of east-west structural bays and breaking the building into smaller masses addressed several design challenges.

Breaks in the long facade provide views of and access to the future BeltLine spur trail. These new open-air pedestrian corridors are proportioned to envelope trees, bringing nature and sunlight deep into the interior spaces. The transverse outdoor corridors, along with new skylights and courtyards, erode the massive warehouse, scaling down the architecture into floorplates that support mixed uses. The resulting smaller building footprints are more congruous with the scale of the adjacent neighborhood and do not require sprinklers, allowing the existing structure and industrial character of the interior to remain exposed.

While the entire warehouse was built on a single slab at the same level, the exterior grade changes over 50 feet. Interstitial space between buildings on the north end of the site was excavated approximately 30 feet to create a sunken courtyard with amphitheater seating. The excavation exposed the original foundations which lend a historical patina for the new public use. The new grading allows easy access to the entire site and future BeltLine spur trail without stairs or ramps and shields the public courtyard from street noise.

In anticipation of the future BeltLine Spur Trail, this project erodes a wall of industrial buildings, introducing pedestrian scale and an opportunity for neighborhood connectivity where it has not existed for over 70 years. Buildings built for manufacturing have been sculpted into a new people-focused purpose, fostering accessibility, walkability, and gathering. Excavated area between the original boiler room, warehouse, and administration building creates a new retail campus centered on a ‘sunken’ courtyard with amphitheater seating, shielded from Marietta Street. This central gathering space is a place for the community to enjoy public events and each other outdoors.

The existing (reuse) and new parts of the design provide a variety of outdoor experiences for the tenants and community. While the original warehouse been strategically sculpted to allow access, sunlight, and nature deep into the buildings, the new overbuild is designed as a counterpoint with strategic balconies to maximize views. Loading docks have been converted into porches on the east and west facades. Existing steel structures have been revealed or deconstructed to different degrees – in some locations the exposed armature provides pockets of shade.

Breaks in the buildings not only create promenade connections across the site, but also provide for direct exterior access to tenant office and retail spaces. Given that pandemic-resilience is likely to be a public constraint for the foreseeable future, this plan eliminates lobbies and elevator banks and maximizes open-air circulation through shared spaces.