MAST: Coastal Georgia’s Center for Regenerative Building

Year: 2025 Design & Honor Awards | Category: Student Project

Consisting of two major architectural and landscape components, the Mast and Basin work to connect the City of Brunswick with the natural ecological processes of the native saltmarsh. With each passing tide, the design utilizes a large basin and artificial oyster reefs to cleanse waters along the city’s polluted coastline. Assembled with reclaimed steel, the architecture hosts facilities that aid in community resilience through the recycling of disposed building materials. Locals work together to build community resiliency to protect their homes and local businesses in the face of a changing climate and rising sea level.

Design Challenge

This design was predicated on creating a solution for some of Georgia’s most at-risk communities. In an effort to plant the seed of self-sufficiency and community resiliency, this design asks how architecture and landscape architecture can work together to restore natural processes and rethink our relationship with the coast. As Brunswick descends into a period of deconstruction and ‘guerilla-resiliency’ brought on by rising sea levels, a solution was sought for a long-term adaptable solution. Ideas of disassembly, reuse, and adaptability were held closely throughout the design process in an effort to limit and offset the carbon footprint of construction. Landscape solutions would continue to mitigate the infiltration of tidal and stormwater flooding into abutting residential neighborhoods. From the start, limiting the structure’s conditioned square footage was a primary strategy in the design. Less than 16% of the footprint is fully conditioned, referencing local vernacular architectural elements to create shaded exterior spaces. The massing was optimally oriented for passive solar conditioning, as coastal Georgia’s subtropical climate allows throughout the year. Materials sourced from Brunswick’s deconstructed industrial coastline drove the design of the building. Large amounts of corrugated sheet metals, dimension lumber, and other sheathings can be sourced from the monolithic warehouses of Brunswick’s deindustrializing ports. Additionally, the design calls for structural members to be constructed from excess building materials, or salvaged from local distributors and port infrastructure. Throughout the design, the needs of the community and the relationship with local habitat drove solutions.

Student(s)
Hazen Soucy

School
Savannah College of Art and Design

Project Location
Brunswick, GA

Completion Date
6/10/2024

Professor
Alice Guess