Jackson St Building UGA: History, Design & Guide

Standing at the intersection of historic charm and modern innovation on North Campus, the jackson st building uga serves as the academic and creative heart of the University of Georgia’s College of Environment and Design (CED). Originally constructed during the peak of mid-century campus expansion, this structure has evolved from a utilitarian arts facility into an internationally recognized model of adaptive reuse and sustainable design.

Whether you are an incoming design student, an architecture enthusiast, or a campus visitor, understanding the history, design philosophy, and everyday resources of the Jackson Street Building offers a fascinating look at how UGA preserves its structural past while pioneering modern environmental stewardship.

The History of the Jackson St Building UGA

The Jackson Street Building was completed in 1969. Designed by noted Atlanta architect Joseph Amisano of the firm Toombs, Amisano & Wells, the building originally served as the Visual Arts Building. Amisano, renowned for designing iconic Atlanta landmarks like the Woodruff Arts Center, infused the project with mid-century modern principles: exposed raw concrete (brutalism), clean geometric lines, and expansive open interior volumes.

For nearly four decades, the building housed art students firing ceramics, painting canvases, and sculpting. However, when the Lamar Dodd School of Art moved to a new state-of-the-art facility on East Campus in 2008, the Jackson Street Building faced an uncertain future. Rather than tearing down the aging, energy-inefficient mid-century concrete structure, university leadership and the College of Environment and Design chose to practice what they teach: preservation and adaptive reuse.

In 2011, a comprehensive $10.3 million overhaul began under the direction of architectural firm Lord Aeck Sargent. By fall 2012, the facility officially reopened as the new home of the CED, bringing landscape architecture, historic preservation, and urban planning programs under a single collaborative roof.

Sustainable Transformation and LEED Gold Certification

The transformation of the building is celebrated widely in higher education architecture circles. Adaptive reuse preserves the "embodied energy" already tied up in concrete and steel, eliminating the massive carbon footprint associated with demolition and new construction. The renovation achieved LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council through several forward-thinking strategies:

• Advanced Daylighting: Amisano's original design already emphasized natural light, but the renovation enhanced this with high-performance insulated glazing, sunshades, and skylights that drive daylight deep into the studio core, drastically cutting artificial lighting demands.
• Photovoltaic Solar Array: A substantial rooftop solar panel installation generates clean, on-site electricity, feeding energy directly into the building's grid.
• Water Harvesting Systems: Rainwater is directed from the expansive roof into large exterior cisterns, which supply water for plumbing and landscape irrigation.
• Indoor Environmental Quality: High-efficiency HVAC systems paired with low-VOC finishes ensure superior interior air quality, crucial for design studios where students spend long hours modeling and rendering.
• Exposed Systems as Teaching Tools: Mechanical, electrical, and structural systems were intentionally left exposed where possible, allowing faculty to use the facility itself as an active, three-dimensional textbook for sustainable engineering and construction.

Inside the Facility: Academic and Public Spaces

The interior of the Jackson Street Building is designed to encourage spontaneous collaboration, multi-disciplinary review, and hands-on making. It functions as both an intensive workspace and an exhibition hub for environmental planning.

Design Studios

The building features expansive, multi-tiered open studios. Here, undergraduate and graduate landscape architecture, historic preservation, and urban planning students work at dedicated drafting stations. The open layout promotes continuous peer critiques, inter-year mentorship, and cross-disciplinary feedback.

The Circle Gallery

Located near the main entrance, the Circle Gallery is the College of Environment and Design’s primary public exhibition venue. It hosts rotating exhibits throughout the academic year, highlighting professional landscape projects, historical retrospectives, regional planning proposals, and capstone work by graduating students. Admission is free and open to the public during normal operating hours.

The Owens Library and Reading Room

Named after Hubert Bond Owens, the founder of UGA’s landscape architecture program, this specialized branch library holds rare monographs, planning journals, rare regional maps, and landscape literature. It provides a quiet, resource-dense study environment distinct from the bustling main campus libraries.

Fabrication and Digital Technology Labs

Modern design requires both physical prototyping and digital simulation. The building contains dedicated computer labs equipped with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), CAD, and 3D modeling software, alongside a fabrication shop outfitted with laser cutters, 3D printers, and traditional woodworking machinery for physical scale models.

Location, Parking, and Visitor Access

The Jackson Street Building is located on North Campus at 285 S. Jackson Street, Athens, GA 30602, directly adjacent to historic downtown Athens.

• Campus Transit: The building is conveniently accessible via several UGA bus routes, including the North-South, Orbit, and East Campus Express routes stopping at the Arch or nearby along Baldwin and Jackson Streets.
• Visitor Parking: The nearest public parking facility is the North Campus Parking Deck (located off S. Jackson St. near Carlton St.) or metered municipal parking located immediately north in Downtown Athens.
• Accessibility: The facility offers ADA-accessible entrances via ramps on the north and west facades, with interior elevators connecting the studio levels.

A Lasting Impact on Environmental Design

The Jackson Street Building stands as proof that historic mid-century structures do not need to be replaced to meet 21st-century environmental demands. By rehabilitating a classic modernist building into a high-efficiency academic center, the University of Georgia created a living laboratory where future planners, conservationists, and designers can study the built environment inside the very walls that exemplify their field.