CODA Public Spaces Home Page

The Civic Trust
CODA Public Spaces Program.... Atlanta 1996
"Public Space, The Olympics, and the Inner City"

by Randal Roark.....(page 2)

The first initiative is to increase the capacity, security and quality of the pedestrian environment in the center city. This is imperative for the preparation of the City for the Olympics. It is obvious to citizen and visitor alike that Atlanta's sidewalks are narrow, deteriorating and unpleasant. The focus of this objective is in the creation of twelve pedestrian corridors which will widen and improve sidewalks, increase accessibility, improve storm drainage and utility services, add street trees, seating, a new street light system which illuminates the sidewalk as well as the street, and add a new pedestrian signage system. These corridors are the primary connections between MARTA stations and Olympic Venues, all of which have post-Olympic viability. More importantly, these projects establish new design guidelines and hardware specifications that can be used to improve other streets after 1996. At the same time, designers have been encouraged to seek and reinforce the particular history and character of each corridor. Also included are several new and reconstructed parks which follow the same agenda. Together these projects constitute basic improvements to the public environment. They attempt to correct glaring fundamental inadequacies in the City's public space and pedestrian transportation network and create new opportunities for daily use and special events.

In addition to increasing the inventory of conventional urban public spaces CODA also seeks to engage a wider discourse on the public realm through the creation of new public space types and uses. This second initiative has been approached through three components. First CODA, along with the Architecture Society of Atlanta, sponsored the competition on "Public Space in the New American City," which generated over 700 entries for designs of four projects to reclaim left over infrastructural urban wasteland, such as parking lots and freeway bridges, for productive urban use. Called "Art Parks" because of encouraged collaborations among artists and other design disciplines, CODA has been able to implement all or parts of the proposals for two of the four sites.The second component seeks to integrate public art with infrastructure through the commissioned design of elements such as park bollards, freeway fences, lighting and signage. The third component engages architecture more directly in productive contributions to the identity and function of public space such as modular vendor market structures, shade canopies, and the Atlanta Pavilion as a canopied public space acting as a focus of civic activity and information. In each component CODA has sought to create new spaces that enable a variety of activities rather than prescribe a limited few.

The Civic Trust

Georgia Tech Campus ... Fox ... Portman ... Public Spaces ... Chicken ... Billboards ... Varsity ... Atlanta Essay ... Gorillas ... Stone ... Dreams & Crossroads ... Symphony ... Links ... Neat Stuff