The EcoCommons at Georgia Institute of Technology is the largest standalone landscape project ever undertaken by the university. The project began as a solution to address the need identified in the 2004 Campus Landscape Master Plan for a series of open landscapes. In addition to creating new amenities for the campus community to gather, relax, and study, the Institute wanted to ensure these landscapes were ecologically functioning to support sustainability initiatives, improve stormwater management, reduce runoff, and provide new opportunities for on-site research. Now, the eight-acre EcoCommons is an ecologically and socially conscious pedagogical space, presenting native regional ecologies and daylighting the site’s nearly forgotten Civil Rights history.

At the outset of conceptual design, the design team facilitated multi-day workshops with students and faculty. It was here that it became clear that the project must embody the community’s fundamental desires for water stewardship, engage social connection, amplify native Piedmont ecologies, and be honest to Georgia Tech’s past. These generated additional key principles that guided the vision and foundation for the final EcoCommons design. The design manifests the goals of the Institute through three primary zones that also embody the unique tenants of the campus desires and the site’s history: Learn, Engage, Reflect. EcoCommons is the core of this series of open spaces, reintegrating functional topography and water flow and creating three living landscape typologies that meet each of these goals.

EcoCommons meets one of the primary goals of the Institute by reducing stormwater runoff, diverting millions of gallons of stormwater entering the city’s sewer system, and capturing stormwater for irrigation. The high-functioning landscape supports Georgia Tech’s commitment to sustainability and provides research opportunities for students and faculty, with current educational initiatives including a study of on-site bees. By supporting the research pedagogy of the Institute through environmental monitoring, reducing stormwater runoff, and creating a new outdoor learning pavilion, the EcoCommons provides data and space to Learn.

The EcoCommons provides abundant spaces for the community, including a learning deck for outdoor classes, a hammock grove, slides to traverse the site’s topography, and lush native plantings for immersive experiences. The Georgia Tech community is Engaged within this accessible landscape for active and passive recreation, increased connectivity, and relaxation.

Finally, the EcoCommons responds to and engages the public in a significant moment in Civil Rights history. The site is the former location of the Pickrick Diner — an all-white establishment that refused service to three Black students from a local seminary, an incident which led to the first lawsuit which upheld by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Unity Plaza celebrates the agency and bravery of these students and invites the public to reflect on this legacy and its importance today. Unity Plaza invites the community to Reflect on the site’s significant Civil Rights history.

Through stormwater capture and reuse, habitat and air quality monitoring, outdoor instruction areas, study, and gathering, and a contemplative site for social justice, the design creates opportunities for learning, research, engagement, and reflection for students, faculty, and visitors. EcoCommons demonstrates Georgia Tech’s bold aspirations for its campus: an accessible and connective landscape that integrates ecological performance with rich educational, recreational, and interpretive opportunities.

• Other landscape architecture offices involved in the design of the landscape:
Barge Design Solutions

• Architecture offices involved in the design:
Lake|Flato

• Other credits:
Biohabitats – Ecological Consultant
Atlas Technical Consultants – Civil Engineer
Newcomb and Boyd – Lighting Design
Irrigation Consultant Services – Irrigation Consultant
Turner Construction – Construction Manager

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