#022 - Doug Hooker - Atlanta Regional Commission; Seeing the Forest - 03-02-15

As the Executive Director of the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), Doug Hooker is uniquely positioned to gage the state of Metro Atlanta. His organization is charged with coordinating the planning and development of what can feel like innumerable municipalities. Each interconnect with its neighbors but only empowered to work within its own purview.

Its bewildering how many issues are deeply affected by planning and transit, and Doug has to understand all of them. Fortunately for the Atlanta Region, Doug has a unique talent for understanding and explaining complex issues. In this interview with Nathan Koskovich, AIA, he shares many of his thoughts on Atlanta, including how he came to be in the city at all.

Links

Atlanta Regional Commission

If you have the time, dig deep into the Atlanta Regional Commission's website. Not only will it give you more information on many of the missions ARC is charged with, but it also has an amazing amount of information on regional issues. 

The Wall at Peyton Road

The Peyton Road Wall Controversy was a major turning point as it represent a sharp shift from planning directed by segregationist ideas.

The Equality of Opportunity Project

As Doug mentions, physical access to opportunity is a key component of economic opportunity. See some of the stats here

Cities, Produce More Wealth and Use Fewer Resources

I should post this talk annually. Geoffrey West  breaks down the value cities bring to the world scientifically. The potential West has measured in cities Doug and others are trying to maximize here in Metro Atlanta and in other parts of the world.

Douglas Hooker is the executive director of the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC). ARC is an agency which facilitates local governments in the Atlanta region implement innovative solutions for small and large challenges and opportunities. In his role he oversees programs and services that support community development, transportation development, water and natural resources, arts and culture, aging and health resources and workforce development, community research and analytics, and more. 

In his career he has worked for public sector and private sector organizations, among them: the City of Atlanta’s Department of Public Works (serving as the Commissioner who led the agency through the 1996 Olympic Games); Executive Director of the State Road & Tollway Authority (SRTA); Director of Finance and Administration with Bio-Lab, Inc., and Vice President for Business Development and Marketing with Atkins Engineering (formerly PBS&J). He began his career with Georgia Power where he worked as a design engineer, project manager, design section supervisor, and as a technology policy analyst. Through the different facets of his career he has had the privilege to work on important regional and local projects in the areas of energy, education, transportation, transit, and water.

Doug holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree and a Master of Science (in Technology & Science Policy) degree from Georgia Tech, as well as a Masters of Business Administration from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. He is married to Patrise Perkins-Hooker, a Georgia Tech and Emory alumna herself, who is the Vice President and General Counsel of the Atlanta Beltline. In his spare time,Doug composes music, plays in a community band, loves to read, and travels with his wife.

#021 - Thomas Wheatley - 2014 / 2015 Review - Preview - Watching Urbanism

Happy New Year! 

This month's addition of Shoptalk serves as an introduction to Thomas Wheatley, Creative Loafing's News Editor, and a review of 2014's development landmarks along with a look forward to developments to come in 2015. Thomas Wheatley is an Atlanta native and the news editor of Creative Loafing, Atlanta's alt-weekly. He started at CL in 2007 as a staff writer covering transportation, urban development, and the environment. He has also written for Flagpole and Next City. He lives with his wife and two cats in southwest Atlanta's Westview neighborhood. 

Nathan Koskovich, AIA is a licensed architect in the state of Georgia, host of Shoptalk and chair of the Architecture and Design Center.

Links

Creative Loafing

2014

Cultural Buildings

A whole set of new cultural institutions got new homes, or at least started work on a new home. Some, like the New Falcon Stadium, are more of the same, suburban models jammed into an urban context, and others, like the College Football Hall of Fame embrace the neighborhood and contribute to creating a more vibrant city.

New Atlanta Falcons Stadium

Sun Trust Field

National Center for Civil and Human Rights

Zuckerman Museum of Art

College Football Hall of Fame

Transit Infrastructure

Roads used to be the new transit. Then they were the only transit. Now they're the old transit and more and more alternative modes are developing in Atlanta.

GA-400/I-85 Flyover

Atlanta Street Car

Mixed Use Development

Atlanta continues to move awkwardly toward true urban developments. Some of the new developments which at least partially opened in 2014 succeed more (Ponce City Market) than others (Avalon).

Ponce City Market

Krog Street Market

Buckhead Atlanta

Avalon

2015

Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam Architects have two new exciting projects scheduled to break ground in 2015.

Alliance Buckhead

One Museum Place

Culture

Many of the City's best loved cultural institutions are growing and expanding. Below are some of the most exciting looking new digs.

Atlanta History Center Reopening

The Cafe at Linton's Atlanta Botanical Garden

Center for Puppetry Arts Renovation

Reynoldstown Stage

Infrastructure

Building out extra capacity and parallel transit systems as well as maintaining the existing networks are on the agenda for 2015

City of Atlanta Bond

West Side Trail

East Side Trail Extension

Development

The investment Midtown Atlanta made in planning years ago continues to pay dividends as mid and high rise developments continue to spring up in the area.

Midtown Atlanta

Events

The eyes of the design world don't often turn to Atlanta, but they will several times this year.

American Institute of Architects National Convention

Downtown / Midtown Bridgescape Competition

Potential

The Old Atlanta Constitution Building

#20 - Laura Flusche - Museum of Design Atlanta - Culture Makes Objects, Objects Make Culture

Nathan Koskovich, AIA sits down with Laura Flusche to talk about how she became the Executive Director of the Museum of Design Atlanta, her time in Rome and move to Atlanta, and the relationship between culture and the objects those cultures produce.

Laura Flusche serves as Executive Director of the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA). She joined MODA in 2010 as Associate Director and was promoted to her current position in January of 2013. As Executive Director, she leads all of the museum’s strategic initiatives and oversees the creation and implementation of exhibitions and programs that demonstrate the power of design to effect positive change in the world.

Prior to joining MODA, Laura lived for fifteen years in Rome, Italy, where she served as Assistant Academic Dean on the University of Dallas Rome Campus, taught art history and archaeology to university undergraduates, and worked on the Palatine East Excavations, supervising excavations and contributing to the publication of archaeological findings.

In 2001, Laura co-founded the Institute of Design + Culture in Rome (iDC), a not-for-profit organization that offered on-site seminars about art, archaeology, history, and culture to Rome’s visitors.  As president of the iDC, Laura conceived and implemented educational programs, hired and supervised faculty, and assisted with client relations and with the creation and maintenance of the organizational image.

Laura holds a master’s degree in Arts Administration from the Savannah College of Art and Design, as well as a Ph.D. in Ancient Roman and Etruscan Art and Archaeology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Master’s degree in Italian Renaissance Art, also from the University of Illinois.

LINKS

Atlanta

Museum of Design Atlanta
Ebony Fashion Fair and Eunice Walker Johnson

Doug Allen
Emerging Voices 2011
Ryan Gravel
Tristan Al-Haddad
Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam
Central Atlanta-Fulton Library
Baton Bob
Cultural Experience Project

Rome
Etruscan Urbanism
Theater of Pompey
The Seven Hills of Rome

Design
Modern Architecture
Philippe Starck
Orange Juicer
Marcel Breuer
Oscar De La Renta

#19 - JW Robinson - 10-24-14 - Citizen Architect #3

Weather it's John Busby's involvement in efforts to save the Fox Theater or JW Robinson's pioneering work as an educator, architect, and community leader, one of the guiding theses behind this podcast is that many of the best parts of Atlanta, both physically and culturally, owe their existence to architects, and that these stories need to be told.

In this latest episode of our Citizen Architect sub-series, Nathan Koskovich, AIA sits down with Jeffery Robinson, AIA, principal of JW Robinson & Associates to talk about his father and founder of JW Robinson, Joseph Robinson Sr., FAIA. JW Robinson was one of the first African American Architects in the state of Georgia and the first to be recognized as a Fellow of the AIA for his contributions to the profession and to the city of Atlanta.

Jeffery Robinson

Images

Atlanta Life Insurance, Building

CB King Federal Court House

Grant Park Pool

Martin Luther King Jr. Birth Home

Thornton Residence

Links

JW Robinson and Associates

Joseph W. Robinson Sr.

Collier Heights

#18 - YAF's 48hrs - Its a Good Thing

The Young Architect's Forum, a Program of AIA Atlanta, is one of the most dynamic and energetic architecture organizations in the City of Atlanta. Among their great programs is the 48hr Design Competition in which competitors enter without knowing the design challenge and have to come up with a solution within 48 hours. In this episode Nathan Koskovich, AIA talks with Nick Kahler, a YAF member who ran the competition, and Max Kovtoun, winner of this year's 48hr Competition.

Max Kovtoun

See Max's Entry Boards Below

Site Plan

Perspective with monument in background

Perspective looking across mound 

Site Section

Second and Third Place

2nd Eliah Cappi, Shaowen Zhang, Phillip Richardson, and Max Neiswander3rd Cynthia Smith, Annie McCarthy

Links

YAF Atlanta

Historic Mims Park

Millennium Gate

Trajan's Column

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Holocaust Memorial

Tomochichi

#018 - Gabriel Richard - Cajun Buddhist Design Philosophy

Design is inherently collaborative. Designers need clients who need our expertise. We also need others to help us realize designs, builders and other designers. We don't have complete control over the projects we work on and the people we work with. This means in order to produce the best designs possible designers have to be able to bend themselves to the situation and find the limits and possibilities inherent in the projects we have and not try and turn them into the projects we want.

Gabriel Richard is an architect who sees architecture not in terms of projects and buildings, but instead in terms of expert services. He sees himself as a keeper of a process that delivers quality design. His goal on each project is not to deliver a world renown design, but to do honor to the clients goals by providing the services that translates the client's goals and needs into a form which can be permitted and built and which represents the client well. The surprise of this approach is that it leads to the best design possible while not raising the architect's agenda above that of the client's.

Gabe is also a busy father of two. This interview was recorded at his house and his son Mason makes several surprise interjections. We like to think of it as texture that emphasizes that architects are real people who live in the real world.

Gabe was born in Thibodaux, Louisiana in 1973.  Moved to the big city of Marietta, GA as a teenager.  Then went to Southern Poly to get a degree as a requirement for Officers Candidate School while in the Marine Reserves.  Turns out I liked Architecture School better than the Marines.  Went to Columbia University, and got a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design.  Since then I have mostly focused on Architecture, with very little Urban Planning. Revit has been a major factor in my success, but I still sketch when it's convenient. Revit helped me find work when times got tough.  So now I use Archicad, working in the healthcare market for the 

#015 - Parthenon - The Nexus of Everything

"The Parthenon enjoys the reputation of being the most perfect Doric temple ever built. Even in antiquity, its architectural refinements were legendary, especially the subtle correspondence between the curvature of the stylobate, the taper of the naos walls and the entasis of the columns." - John Julius Cooper

David Rader and Nathan Koskovich kickoff our architecture history series with the Parthenon and speculate on why it still matters to architects.