Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Situated at the main entrance to the Upper School Campus, the Barge Commons of The Westminster Schools in Atlanta, created by Tomas Rossant of Ennead Architects acts as a gateway to the historic grounds, and architecturally mitigates a 14-foot grade change between the entrance road and the main campus quadrangle.
The Westminster Schools- Barge Commons project has recently been awarded a 2022 American Architecture Award Honorable Mention, by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The building is designed as a convening facility, a place where local, national, and global not-for-profit organizations are welcome to utilize as a conference center—without charge—in exchange for providing leadership seminars and lectures to the student body.
The project houses six general-purpose classrooms to allow classes to be held synchronously with conferencing events, thus generating spontaneous and productive collisions between students, and established public-interest thought leaders.
The central feature of the project is two large-scale gathering areas, one at the lower level, and one at the level of the main quadrangle, that act as hubs to all other programmatic elements.
These rooms are designed to be constantly changing and easily “flippable” to support varied activities and to foster intellectual exchange between this cohort that does not commonly intermingle.
The project puts leadership on display and presents novel and engaging educational opportunities to Westminster’s students.
The facility is complimented by other “outwardly facing” programs forming an ecosystem of mutual purpose.
These include the admissions office, the Office of Advancement (donor development), the Glenn Institute (community service), Odyssey (support for disadvantaged local students), the Center for Teaching (an institute to advance teaching skills), a chapel, an art gallery, a cafe, and a campus “spirit” store.
The Westminster campus is dominated by formal, Neo-Georgian buildings erected from the 1950s through the late 1960s, with a palate of brick and limestone.
The design of Barge Commons is a vibrant aesthetic dialogue with the past—utilizing the familiar campus materials—but presenting a thoroughly contemporary vision of the institution’s ideals and aspirations.
The Westminster campus is dominated by formal, Neo-Georgian buildings erected from the 1950s through the late 1960s, with a palate of brick and limestone.
The design of Barge Commons is a vibrant aesthetic dialogue with the past—utilizing the familiar campus materials—but presenting a thoroughly contemporary vision of the institution’s ideals and aspirations.
Project: The Westminster Schools- Barge Commons
Architects: Ennead Architects LLP.
Lead Architect: Tomas Rossant
Design Team: Molly McGowan, Todd Van Varick, M. Gregory Clawson, Minh Tran, Billy Erhard, Gary Anderson, Edward Chang, Lucas Dias, Eileen Dirks, Janice Leong, Mariel Mora Llorens, David Monnar, Nikita Payusov, Karl Pops, Ursula Trost, Mat Strack, and Trevor Hollyn Taub
General Contractor: JE Dunn Construction Group
Client: The Westminster Schools
Photographers: Jeff Goldberg / ESTO
