In this studio, students explored the relationship between ground-up building and renovation of older buildings by developing a series of proposals for the stretch of Whitehall Street at the northern boundary of Mechanicsville, a neighborhood just south of downtown Atlanta. Whitehall Street is currently comprised of many empty lots and derelict or partially used buildings (as well as some intact, functioning buildings) and will likely be developed in the near future. Our two primary objectives for proposals along this stretch will be (1) to investigate how our treatment of existing building fabric alongside new building telegraphs a specific view of history (and the architect’s role in shaping that view) and (2) to mitigate gentrification, which so often goes hand-in-hand with revitalization.

Part 1. A visual history of Mechanicsville. To understand the context of Whitehall Street and Mechanicsville at large, the students spent the first three weeks researching the neighborhood, including a local tour led by Jason Dozier, local resident and former vice-president of the Mechanicsville Civic Association; archival research at the Atlanta History Center and via GSU online archives; and conversations with other local stakeholders including local business owners, the principal of the local elementary school, officers of nearby tenant associations, and the director of SUMMECH Community Development Corporation.

On February 5, the students presented these findings to local stakeholders, including DeMicha Luster, founder of the Urban Advocate; Ronald Batiste, president of Eagle Environmental Construction, which has plans to bio-remediate and develop 395 Whitehall Street; Andrew and Matthew Braden of Braden Fellman, developers of the nearby former Abrams Fixture Corporation; David Mitchell and Ian Michael Rogers of the Atlanta Preservation Center; and several members of the Mechanicsville Civic Association. The history presentations were used to kick off a programming brainstorming session which influenced the students' proposals for their final projects.

Part 2. Precedent Analysis. Next, each student spent one week analyzing in depth one reuse precedent, with particular attention to relationships between old and new in massing, materials, and environmental enclosure. Students shared these analyses with each other as a collective bank of precedents from which to draw. Shown below are a few examples.

Part 3. Final Project. For the final project, students worked in pairs (and one group of three), with each pair responsible for proposing a ground-up development side-by-side with a renovation of an existing structure. Each student was primarily responsible for one building, but each pair of buildings was required to have a relationship to each other, conceptually and materially. Specifically, each pair of buildings was required to have one material that "bridges" between them. Students proposed their own programming based on the conversations from the first month and ongoing collaboration with community members.

They were given this prompt: "Your imaginary client is a local developer who wants to provide amenities for the existing neighborhood and also wants some financial sustainability (but, without getting into detail, you can also imagine a variety of tax credits or other incentives for not maxing out rents and unit numbers/ square footage). The developer wants Whitehall to become an attractor for Castleberry Hill and other neighborhoods as well as an amenity for Mechanicsville and hires you for pre-design and programming as well as design phases."

Site 1. Whitehall Junction. Arthima Chaisiri and Chris Geng propose to "add, alter, and amplify" the existing building to extend the existing performing arts programming, improve upon existing housing units, and add a food market, all while embracing the collage-like aesthetic created by years of ad-hoc additions and alterations.

Site 3. W400s The Missing Middle by Maya Neal, Cody Fallenstein, and Paula Morales proposes three approaches to promote cyclical use of materials: (1) a mostly open-air gabion and bamboo Internet café and studio for the existing artisan community; (2) an adaptive reuse of the existing House Parts buildings (one enclosed, one shell) as micro-loft apartments and retail/ restaurant space; and (3) Cercle, a mixed-use housing complex centered on an existing empty warehouse and including a day care and a series of repair and rental shops encouraging material longevity.

Site 5. C'est la V: Embracing the Ruin by Belen Heybroek and Tori Ellis proposes to revitalize two post-industrial sites: one with contaminated ground in need of bio-remediation and one with an abandoned warehouse. Their strategy on the first site is excavation—building down after the earth is removed for off-site remediation—while their strategy on the warehouse site is elevation—building up to increase density and programming. C'est la V is a combined housing facility and construction work training institute, in which residents, many formerly homeless, build tiny homes and live in units based on the dimensions of tiny homes.

The senior Capstone studio is interdisciplinary and collaborative, and we benefited from workshops, tours, critiques, and lectures by many members of the Georgia Tech community and beyond. In addition to those listed above, many thanks to:

Erica Hague, Atlanta History Center: Workshop on Using the Archives

Jason Dozier, Mechanicsville Civic Association: Whitehall Street Site Tour

Yanni Loukissas, Georgia Tech, Local Data Design Lab: Lecture on Local Data

Danielle Willkens, Georgia Tech School of Architecture: Lecture on Visualizing History

Jack Dinning, Healthy Materials Lab, Parsons: Workshop on Healthy Materials

Ajay Manthripragada, California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo: Mid-Project Review

Aaron Shkuda, Princeton University: Guest Desk Crit on Urban Strategy

Perry Yang, Georgia Tech, Eco Urban Lab: Guest Desk Crit on Sustainability Strategy

and everyone who joined for our final review, as listed below.