Since its founding in 2007, MA!’s annual festival has trumpeted Atlanta as a surging creative destination where the design economy thrives, and 2018’s version promises to be no different.
The expansive Atlanta Design Festival (formerly Design is Human Atlanta) returns to town from May 26 to June 3. A perennial favorite is the tour of modern homes (and offices), which highlights the best of Atlanta’s sustainable, contemporary, and otherwise innovative design.
Across a decade, the tour has logged 4,100 visitors from 45 states.
Below, find a preview of some architectural highlights—spanning from the banks of the Chattahoochee River to the cusp of Freedom Parkway and beyond—from Atlanta’s 11th incarnation, set for June 2 and 3:
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Mews House
In what could be a preview of Atlanta’s densifying future, the Mews House off Edgewood Avenue in the Old Fourth Ward was designed to puzzle into one of the city’s smallest lots—a 14-foot-wide, 20-foot-deep Daniel Street postage stamp.
[CORRECTION: Per the architect, the lot is actually 20 feet wide by 75 feet deep; the house is 14 feet wide by 55 feet deep. “Based on our research,” architect Alex Wu writes in an email, “it is the third smallest lot with a detached single-family house on it in the City of Atlanta.”]
A simplified gabled form juxtaposed with a brick box and sheathed in batten and vertical board, the dwelling was inspired by mews—or carriage—houses in London that’ve been converted to residences.
Key factoid: In an effort to reduce lifecycle costs (that is, building materials and then heating and cooling), the home is 25 percent smaller than dwellings with similar features.
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Split Box house
Set back on a steep, verdant lot near the CDC and Emory University, the Split Box house was made for a family of five using a cascading system of concrete walls and terraced gardens.
Some roofs are topped with vegetation to improve energy consumption, reduce stormwater runoff, and boost air quality.
Interesting detail: As a 22-foot-wide extruded bar, the main house required no support walls inside, maximizing the floorplan’s openness.
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Tall Haus
Overlooking Freedom Parkway, the Tall Haus is a recent addition to the Old Fourth Ward’s ever-burgeoning crop of modern residential.
It spans 3,000 square feet on a narrow lot just 26 feet wide, with an elevator servicing all floors and a system of floating stairs allowing light to penetrate in from the roof.
Fun fact: As the summertime sun passes over the home, it projects a square of light—made by the roof frame—across the sidewalk.
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Hillside House
Located on a rolling piedmont site just outside the Perimeter, The Hillside House in Marietta overlooks Atlanta Country Club and what’s described as a “stringently controlled riparian buffer of the Chattahoochee River.”
Cool fact: The six-bedroom, two-story dwelling was designed to preserve and wrap around a mature silver maple planted by one of the owner’s mothers a half century ago.
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lilli Midtown
Among the non-standalone-home offerings on this year’s tour will be this model unit at lilli Midtown, a 24-story, 147-unit tower by JPX Works scheduled to wrap construction on Peachtree Street in June. It’s sponsored by Room and Board.
Occupying a tiny site of 0.31 acres, the lilli tower’s official tour description is as follow:
The façade is characterized by alternating, inset balconies framed by white, metal-panel bands. The bold architecture is complimented by modern interiors with ample natural light and a Scandinavian aesthetic.
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Serenbe Shotgun
Farther afield, MA! patrons will find these recent interpretations of shotgun houses in Serenbe, part of a larger slate of May 27 tour offerings at the growing, sustainable mixed-use community.
The 900-square-foot dwelling open for the tour, dubbed a Modern Shotgun, takes cues from classic Southern vernacular “with a fresh twist for efficient, smart living and a nod to historic intown Atlanta neighborhood architecture such as Kirkwood and Cabbagetown,” per the tour description.
It includes a 400-square-foot, private side yard.
- MA! Design is Human [site]
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