In case you haven’t noticed, Atlanta is booming. At present, the city touts a $30 billion design economy and is poised to become the “creative capital of the Southeast,” according to representatives from the upcoming Atlanta Design Festival.
Amid a housing crisis, located in Atlanta’s historic Fourth Ward Park is one of the city’s most ambitious megaprojects to date: Fourth Ward. The mixed-use district developed by New City, an Atlanta development company, boasts designs from Morris Adjmi, Olson Kundig, and others. Previously, New City has completed other transformative projects in Atlanta like Ponce City Market, a redevelopment project not far from the new buildings.
At Fourth Ward, the 11-acre site previously owned by Georgia Power is designed to provide a connection between the historic park and Atlanta’s BeltLine. Morris Adjmi contributed Overline Residences: a 630,000-gross-square-foot residential complex with 359 total units. Morris Adjmi’s ensemble ranges between 16 and 18 stories. The residential component recently opened and a social club is forthcoming.
Overline Residences use red brick, a nod to the site’s industrial past and the nearby Ponce City Market. The complex offers apartments including multi-level units and maisonettes with their own private, street-level entries. The project’s setbacks are designed to diminish the building’s scale, creating a serene environ above the parkland. At the roof-level is a shared swimming pool. Interior spaces were designed by Becca Roderick, design director of interiors at Morris Adjmi.
“As a project nears completion, there’s always an eagerness to understand how the building is received by the local community, particularly within new markets for MA, like Atlanta,” Morris Adjmi told AN. “Sometimes I think there’s an assumption that our approach to contextual design is formulaic, or that we’re trying to recreate New York City’s Meatpacking District in other communities. What I hope we prove with The Overline, and all of our projects outside of New York City, is that our design approach is actually quite nuanced and nimble. Every detail of The Overline’s form and function was carefully considered with Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward in mind, from the stepped massing to the color and texture of the brick to the variety of living and gathering spaces created.”
The two buildings at Overline are connected with what the architects call the Woonerf, or “living street.” With a clear emphasis on walkability, Overline blends public and private spaces at the ground-level to create a vibrant streetscape. The architects note that the Woonerf will also provide a landscaped path to the historic Fourth Ward park and nearby shops, restaurants, and entertainment.
Roughly half of the site at Fourth Ward comprises a 480,000-square-foot office building by Olson Kundig with HKS Architects as the executive architects. Opening next month, in-sync with Atlanta Design Festival, the web-based marketing company MailChimp has been confirmed as the anchor tenant of the building. According to the architects, the design is a blend between sustainable sensibilities and technological innovation.
Future public transit lines will connect to Fourth Ward in coming years to offer tenants a car-free lifestyle. The BeltLine extension to the site will activate a bustling plaza encircled by mid-rise office towers connected vis-a-vis skybridges.
Another building underway in the mixed-use development, very much still in the early stages, is a residential contribution from Berlin-based firm Barkow Leibinger. To register for a tour of Atlanta’s Fourth Ward in the forthcoming Atlanta Design Festival, follow this link.
