Spectators watching water-bound athletes dive for gold in the expansive new Olympic Aquatic Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology will have the beautiful Atlanta skyline as a backdrop. This unique athletic facility , although roofed, maintains the spacious experience of an open-air arena.

Built to house the Olympic swimming and diving events, the $28.5 million facility that incorporates a soaring diving tower, a sweeping roof and a huge spiral entry ramp will accommodate 19,000 spectators, while an adjacent temporary water polo stadium will seat 4,000. Landscape Architect Jean Aldy of Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart & Associates describes the planning process as "not a landscape architecture project, per say, but one that involved intensive site planning." As the facility will be scaled down after the Games, when 11,000 temporary seats are removed, the roof line is reduced, the ramp removed and the water polo pool eliminated, a large percentage of the landscape is temporary and will be dismantled after the Games. Aldy explains the impact that working with a "live temporary" landscape as "an opportunity of seeing a project now that is new and has a dynamic look to it, (and) one year later when it has a completely different look and surroundings."

Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart & Associates, project architect and landscape architect, emphasized the design of the new Aquatic Center as "an overall unit, not in pieces separated into buildings and landscapes," that consequently allows the facility to better blend in with the Georgia Tech campus. After the Games, what will remain for the University, which elected not to keep the entire complex because of maintenance and operations costs, will be a permanent, 4,000-seat facility that adjoins the existing student athletic center and will rank it among the most unique university-based athletic facilities in the United States. Both the multi-disciplinary firm and the Metropolitan Atlanta Olympic Games Authority foresee the diving tower, which comprises a "cauldron" shape similar to the familiar Olympic torch, will remain as a natatorium legacy of the Centennial Games.

As each Olympic venue has its own "spin" on the official Quilt of Leaves logo, the landscape of the Aquatic Center (the only new facility with a roof) incorporates the colors of the "Look of the Games" with banners and kiosks to ensure an intense visual impact on the spectators. The design team was certainly challenged to develop a space that will work functionally-- it will move people from venue to venue on a rigid, structured schedule-- amidst the constant Pre-Olympic activity of the stadium. As a result, as project designer Manny Dominguez explains, "the people spaces themselves make up the landscape." The open spaces and buildings work together to maximize the sense of arrival that follows each spectator from the Airport to the venue, the intense information system that starts at the airport and ends in the stadium, and to establish the cultural feel and lasting legacy for the games that ACOG has worked so hard to coordinate.

Dominguez describes the "micro scale" of the project as "a feeling of intimacy under canopies and shades;" when viewed holistically, the dynamic architectural features and landscape architecture orientation at a micro scale intensifies the "entire Olympic experience" of the natatorium. And, although challenged into coordinating the season-specific plant materials during all phases of design and construction, Dominguez is "excited to be a part of taking the complete life of something (Pre-Olympic, Olympic, and Post Olympics forms) and compressing it into one year's time."

Photo caption: Spectators will have Atlanta as their landscape when viewing the intense competitions from the spectacular diving platform at Georgia Tech's new Olympic Aquatic Center.

Project Team:

Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart & Associates (la & a)

Jean C. Aldy, RLA, Associate-in-Charge

Ming Zhao, Project Designer

William D. Reynolds, Principal-in-charge

Howard H. Stewart, Design Principal

Richard Kilpatrick, AIA, Project Manger

Joe Nuzzaco, project Designer

Manny Dominguez, project designer

Joint Venture Partner

Stanley, Love-Stanley, PC.

William J. Stanley, III, Principal

Ivenue Love-Stanley, Principal

Keith Hicks, Project Architect