Atlanta Dairies

Project Description

For 60 years, the old Atlanta Dairies cooperative, with its familiar milk carton sign and Streamline Moderne façade, was a hub of commercial activity near downtown Atlanta.

The client’s vision for the 10 acre property is to create a new cultural and entertainment destination to the area, while preserving the best qualities of site’s industrial character. Original elements such as catwalks, loading docks, concrete structures, and the iconic milk carton sign will be carefully restored and integrated into the new development.

The program includes a mix of specialty shopping, dining, entertainment venues, and creative office space, all connected by greenspace and anchored by 300 units of multifamily apartments.

The design strategy feeds off the existing network of steel catwalks that bisect the site and that were originally used in the milk pasteurization process. These catwalks, along with a new catwalk spine, become the organizing elements for the site, linking the development together and becoming your guide into and through the site. This spine becomes the axis from which all program elements branch off.

The site is layered in many ways; historically, topographically and programmatically, with new, existing and adaptive reuse structures. These layers are all connected with these organizing elements.

The design of the two entirely new structures on the site, the new 4 story office building and the 1,800 seat music venue, uses a contemporary façade language that together with the second story addition on the adaptive reuse building, compliments the historic Streamline Moderne building. These buildings surround a smaller family courtyard as well as a main plaza that takes advantage of a natural slope to create an amphitheater and a series of terraces that become event spaces for the development.