BELTLINE PAVILION

The Adair Park Pavilion is the result of a studied relationship between the street car and railroad origins of the Adair Park neighborhood and the latent need for a space to gather and perform, along the newly constructed Westside portion of the Atlanta Beltline.  The wooden canopy that hovers lightly above a sloping ground plane takes inspiration from a switch in a railroad track – a physical element common both to the history of neighborhood and its present day surroundings.  The wooden slats veer off from straight parallel runs at specific locations to create visual connections to the sky above as well as to provide openings for structure to pass through.   The canopy is activated by the sun, pulsing with the rhythm of the seasons and animating the performance and gathering space below.  The structure itself is made up primarily of steel columns that touch the landscape at nine points and extend beyond the plane of the canopy and suspend it delicately in the air with steel cables as if it were a remnant piece of abandoned railroad put on display. As with any piece of abandoned railroad, vegetation eventually makes its way, slowly creeping in over time before taking over the structure entirely.  In this instance, that process is curated and focused within steel planter boxes that occupy the revealed landscape.  The vegetation planted within references the kudzu vines typical of an overgrown site but takes a non-invasive approach, introducing edible and aromatic species to the landscape.