Title: Douglas County High School Sports Complex
Location of Proejct: Douglasville, Georgia
Project Completion Date: December 2021
Firm Name: Cole Hil

Short Description: The Douglas County High School Sports Complex, 'The Claw', is a new Athletic facility located at the first High School in Douglas County established in 1937. This innovative facility was constructed within the footprint of the old field house and grandstand, which had fallen into disrepair. The Claw includes a two-story athletic building that houses coach’s offices, locker room, weight room, classrooms, support spaces, and elevated community space with an exterior balcony overlooking the football field. In addition to the athletic facility is a new home grandstand with approximately 3,500 additional seats, team rooms, concessions, and a press box above.

Architect's Statement: The Douglas County High School Sports Complex Project faced specific challenges that reached beyond the norm, including tying the Superintendent and community a new vision for educational and economic elevation and a sudden Covid Pandemic shut down the world. The Principal Architect became a citizen architect, previously invited to be a part of years of vision sessions and community and school system rebranding that was pivotal in informing the innovative architecture and programming. The architect’s involvement became key to ensuring this new change and expectation throughout the design and construction process. This uniquely designed project, named ‘The Claw,’ included 4 elevated Tiger Blue faceted pitched forms folding the edge of the existing football field. The Claw’s enhanced programming and siting lead to a unique design that responds to the ‘4G’ forward mission of the school and the ‘thinking outside the boundaries’ branding of the Douglasville community.
The immediate change in the circumstance for the owner, A&E team, and Contractor and their subs, due to the pandemic, required intense technology training and setup to run the Construction of the project through Procore. Drones assisted the teams in monitoring the construction of the project when site visits and protocols were so strict. More concentrated daily communication and technology were utilized to construct the level of complexity of the design. Agreed upon enhanced collaboration, allowed for forwarding progress, and minimized confusion so that project was able to be completed within budget.

Design For Integration - This design sought to respond to the school's needs as well as its community and economic development vision. The design team derived their inspiration from the existing architecture aesthetic and programming and transformed it into a more design-forward expression, therefore, creating a familiarity of excitement, pride, and rethinking. Through the innovative approach, unifying site design, powerful use of color, collaborative placemaking, use of expansive natural light, and powerful building siting, a big idea was successfully integrated into the oldest high school of a changing community. This vision made reality generated the mundane into open minds of possibilities. The ‘Claw’ now draws high school and college coaches and other communities to tour it for inspiration. It is wonderful for the Owner, Architectural team, and Contractor to continue to receive messages about how this architecture has given its citizens an enhanced environment of learning, sporting, and community – as it is meant to do.

Design For Economy - The collaborative vision of the school district and economic development goal was to shift the fabric of the Douglasville Community to be seen as a more forward community. The design team was tasked to rethink the traditional fieldhouse program in order to transform the school and its surrounding community. Through in-depth collaboration and visioning sessions, the sports complex evolved to add value and demonstrate the forward progression of the school system and community.

Design For Change - Like the rest of the world, the Douglasville community has been going through social changes. Douglasville is one of the oldest Georgia counties. There were difficult struggles between the old and new, inclusion and equality, and reception of change. This project was designed for change in inclusion by selecting a woman-owned firm and diverse engineering team, which has never before been done in the county's history. This project was designed for change in Equitability, by allowing the design team to assist in the project budget development so that the design-forward architecture could be well constructed as the other county's high school's facilities had been. This project is designed for change in transforming the ideals of the community from resistance to difference to acceptance of ideas of what can be... that perhaps change can be good. Now that it building is constructed uneasiness shifted to pride and consensus between the old and new.