Day 14 - Atlanta -- Scogin Elam -- Tardio -- High Art

In Atlanta we visited the office of Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, and were given a great tour. The office works on a lot of innovative contemporary projects, using models as their main design tools. The have also done very well in many international competitions. We also visited one of their buildings - the Buckhead Library - but it wasn't open. 
After leaving their office we went to the High Museum of Art, designed by Richard Meier and Renzo Piano. 
Our last visit of the day was to Carlos Tardio and his partner Mary Claire DeReuil. They showed us around a custom house they had been working on and pointed us towards a few of their other projects.


MSME models


Buckhead Library

Buckhead Library Siding


High Museum of Art

High Museum of Art Ceiling

Carlos Tardio House
Carlos Tardio House

Carlos Tardio House

Carlos Tardio House

Tardio, Carlos Tardio House, Atlanta GA

Chris took us to meet a local architect named Carlos Tardio who also teaches at Georgie Tech  as a design teacher.
This is the view of his house coming over the bridge.
A railway runs beside and under the bridge next to his house.
His house is a little lower than the street level, therefore you get a unusual perspective into the house.

Underneath the house you can see the massive steel beams he has used as well as the wood flooring. There is nothing between the exterior and interior except the wood flooring.
The living room. Most of the house consists of these swiveling walls that area connected at the ceiling and floor. He uses this system in order to section off different areas of the house.

This is looking towards the street through his main entrance. The table pictured there also spins in oder to allow his to close the front wall. He demonstrated how strong the welding joint was by jumping up and standing on his table.
He wanted to use ordinary wood in a precious way for his floor instead of using precious wood. The wood floor was varnished with a coating that is also used in oil paintings.
He wanted to produce wall panels that were structural and to also have glazing. Essentially he made the windows structural units for the house.

A driving idea behind the house's design was he wanted to encourage people to go outside as much as possible. Therefore he designed the house to have large doors and walls that could open.

Here he is telling us about how he used a lot of recycled windows and that he wanted to use materials that could also be recycled later.

One of the coolest features in the house was the ability for the ceiling to also open. This opening is on the top floor almost right above his bed.

Tardio, house two, Atlanta GA


These trees were across the road from the house and the reason that there is Xs and Hearts on the trees is because they have been marked to be cut down to make way for a condo. However there is a group of people called Granmaw Gordon trying to save the trees and have painted hearts over the Xs.