A Photographic Tour of an Urban College Campus

[simms3]

This is the Georgia Institute of Technology.  The school was founded in 1885 to bring higher education to the South.  It was modeled after Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  The school opened with just two buildings, one of which still stands, but by 1905 the campus had grown and President Theodore Roosevelt paid it a visit.  Today Tech has grown to include 400 acres, about 12,000 undergrads, and 8,000 grads, and 4 campuses across the world.  President Emeritus Wayne Clough who was president for most of my time there has moved onto become the Secretary of the Smithsonian, and President Peterson, formerly the chancellor of Boulder serves as Tech’s new president.

The campus is relatively urban.  It is bounded by Downtown, Midtown, Midtown West, Homepark, and Atlantic Station.  Like I said before, it is 400 acres.  There are apartments and townhomes catering to students all around the campus, and many students such as myself have spent the last year or two living off campus in Midtown.  Tech is surrounded by neighborhoods that are far denser than anything that we have in Jacksonville, but you can be on Tech's campus and not realize that you are in the center of a 6 million person metro.  Unfortunately, many students are robbed, beaten, or held up at gunpoint when walking on campus at night (sometimes in the day)...a negative of being so close to downtown Atlanta.

Many students come from overseas or far away states, and so they do not have cars.  Tech has 3 of its own bus systems (the Stinger); one connects Tech students with area grocery stores and points of interest off campus.  Tech has a trolley system that connects students to the Midtown MARTA station.  Tech and Emory have a joint bus system that connects the two universities (the two schools have many joint programs together).  Finally, Tech has a late night shuttle service that allows students to safely traverse the surrounding area at night or to avoid drinking and driving.  In other words, a car is not necessary at Tech.  Zipcar also has a rent center on campus.  I know plenty of people that use Zipcar or a bike-sharing system developed at Tech in conjunction with Emory.

In the early 2000s, Georgia Tech embarked on an ambitious plan to rebuild a seedy and rundown area of Midtown on 5th Street into a large, urban campus and research/office development.  The area is now called Tech Square, more on this later.

A Few Interesting Facts Before We Begin

The Yellowjackets got their name because starting in the 1890s, the men of Georgia Tech wore yellow jackets to all the sporting events.

George P. Burdell is an imaginary alum who has attended every class at Tech over the years because various students have enrolled themselves under his name.  He is Tech’s most famous alum who never existed.

In the early 1900s, John Heisman was Tech’s football coach (1904-1919, after which he moved up to Penn).  In 1916, under Heisman’s coaching, the Tech football team defeated Cumberland 222-0, the largest margin of victory in college history.  Cumberland’s net yardage was -28.

Georgia Tech’s rallying cry when we play UVA is 41-38.  It’s a long tradition that takes too much time to explain, but is similar to Miami fans’ ‘Wide Right’ against FSU.

From 1940 to 1987, Georgia Tech had a mandatory class called ‘Downproofing’ which required students to learn how to float and swim with their legs and arms bound together.  Students called it ‘Drowning 101.’

The first female to attend Tech arrived in 1952, but women could not officially enroll until 1968.  The ANAK Society is a secret society that supposedly helped with integration of all minorities into Tech.

Due to the usual 65:35 men to women ratio, Tech has an acronym, TBS, which stands for Tech Bitch Syndrome.  It’s said that women at Tech have the ability to choose whatever man they want to because of the ratio, and as a result they turn into snobs.

Every year Tech is ranked in the top 10 most stressful and most difficult universities in the country.  Unfortunately a higher suicide rate and rampant alcoholism come with the territory.

Tech has 3 satellite campuses: outside of Paris, in Savannah, and in Singapore.

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Tech Square

I’ll start off with the side of campus I became very familiar with: Technology Square.  This is where the business school at Tech is.  Finished in 2003/2004 at an original cost of $200M, Tech Square has grown to become a mini hub of academic research, a venture capital hub, and a bustling commercial corridor.

In addition to the business school (which was my school), the GVU computer research center, the Advanced Technology Development Center (a multi billion dollar business incubator…the Palo Alto of the South if you will), VentureLab (the step before your company or innovation can be funded by and tied to the ATDC), and the Georgia Electronics Design Center.  The Global Learning Center is here, too.  It serves as a meeting/research building.  Catherine Ross wrote MegaRegions here and Ellen Dunham Jones (professor at our college of architecture) partnered with faculty here to write Retrofitting Suburbia.  Obama has recruited many of the research faculty here onto his team.

Stores include Barnes & Noble, the Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center, Great Clips, a printing store, and tons of restaurants.

Companies include Centergy, RBC Centura Bank, and Accenture.

***Tech Square was one of the first LEED developments in the country (13th I think).  It is currently rated LEED silver.

Looking across the 5th Street Bridge which was widened and renovated in 2007 to better connect the main campus with Tech Square.  The bridge serves as a tailgate spot now, too.








The following from WestinPeachtree at WikiMedia.


My classroom building at night (a lobby area connecting the two sides).  Notice the Chihuly glass sculptures hanging from the ceiling.


Views from one of the Tech Square Parking Garages

View towards East/Central campus


View towards Central/West campus


View towards GA Dome.  The white high rise on the left is about to be imploded and the site redeveloped.


North Avenue Apartments, originally constructed by Tech as Olympic housing.  Afterwards they were leased to Georgia State, and then in 2006 the lease ended and Tech renovated the buildings as housing for its own students.  I lived there my sophomore year on the 9th floor of one of the far buildings.  You want to talk about noise?  Try living directly above that highway!

Now the buildings are LEED EB Gold certified (one of the first EB buildings).  There are self powered piezo-electric nano sensors all over the building that measure environmental factors.  Eventually Tech wants to make the buildings completely self-powered using appropriate wind and solar and nano power technologies developed at the school (like piezoelectric nano-devices).

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East Campus

East Campus is the old campus.  Most of the buildings date from 1888 to 1921.

Most of the following pictures were taken 2 days after Christmas.  The snow left over is from a white Christmas this year when 2-4 inches fell over the metro area.  Because it is 2 days after Christmas, there aren’t many people around

As of 2009, the official Georgia Tech policy states that all new construction and all new renovations will be built to LEED Gold or higher.  Our campus is expected to move onto Platinum in a few years (we already have a couple of platinum buildings not pictured).  Our school energy and water consumption exceed CA state guidelines by at least 20% each.  Georgia Tech is one of the greenest campuses in the world and consistently rates among the top few greenest campuses according to Princeton Review and Sierra Club and the NWF.  Currently about 20-25% of all energy consumption comes from renewable sources ranging from geothermal to PV (solar) to piezo/nano electricity.

FYI, the largest Earth Day (more like week at Tech) in the south is at Tech.

Stephen P. Hall Building, 1924, now serves as the Navy ROTC Armory


Holland Building, 1914


Old Civil Engineering Building, 1939, LEED Gold Certified


David Melville Smith Building, 1923, 1 of two buildings on campus donated by Carnegie








Chapin Building, 1911


John Saylor Coon Building, 1911




Installed in the late 1890s, The Whistle has been stolen by students numerous times (tradition), it blows 5 minutes before each hour to adjourn classes


Old Engineering, Science, and Mechanics Building


Savant and Swann buildings, both 1901








The Guggenheim School of Aeronautics, 1931, one of 7 buildings/schools donated by Daniel Guggenheim (the others at Caltech, MIT, NYU, Stanford, Univ. of WA, Michigan)


The Rockefeller Building, 1912, now our Alumni House






Coca-Cola World HQ, the current CEO is a Tech grad, and Tech grads basically fill half of the management/board positions, it’s no coincidence that Atlanta is the business hub of the south…there are several great universities to recruit from in the area, including two top ranked universities in the country (Tech and Emory)




More North Ave Apartments, soon to be certified LEED EB Gold


Construction of a new dining hall just for North Ave, will be LEED Gold






Lettie Pate Whitehead Admin Building, AKA Tech Tower, 1887


Tech Tower, Stealing the T is a Tech tradition, the last successful theft was in 2001, but the last recent attempt by a couple of Beta brothers ended poorly for them.


Carnegie Building, 1907, LEED Silver registered (not yet certified)


Lyman Hall (Old Chemistry Building), 1905


Emerson Building, 1925




French Building, 1898


Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field, seats 55,000, continuously expanded since 1905




Britain Hall, 1928, now serves as East Campus Dining Hall




Various dorms, all built between 1915 and 1926.




Towers, my freshman dorm


Crum and Forster, 1928




Old Academy of Medicine Auditorium, 1941, seats 250, undergoing a massive renovation right now, designed by famed architect Philip Schutze


The following taken from Georgia Tech Conference Spaces, the chandelier is from Gone With the Wind.


The following image taken from Wikipedia user, “carsonmc”, aka Jeff Clemmons


View towards the O’Keefe Building, 1924, now houses Army ROTC

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Central Campus

Central Campus is undergoing a ton of construction right now.  It’s virtually pointless and impossible to photograph it until all of the additions and changes are done.

Kessler Campanile, photo from Georgia Tech because it’s currently being redone right now.


Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons, LEED Gold, with the Kessler Campanile in the foreground (aka The Shaft), A giant underground cistern is being built so that every building on campus will trap rainwater and most, if not all, water on campus will be recycled.  We have the largest cistern in the country on campus.










Hinman Research Lab (1938) in foreground, LEED Silver or Gold renovation, with Library East wing in background


Klaus Advanced Computing, aka Coliseum of Computing, LEED Gold, Perkins & Will architects


Views toward Tech Square and Midtown and our baseball stadium (which is LEED Gold)








Notice the 1s and 0s






The following images are of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.  Tech partners heavily with Emory Medical school here.  The buildings include the UA Whitaker Building, the Ford Building, the Petit Building, the Molecular Science and Engineering Building, and the Fiber Optic Network Building.  All are built to LEED Silver or Gold standards.












Marcus Nanotechnology Building, LEED Gold standards, the largest nano/cleanroom lab at any university and one of the largest cleanroom spaces in the world
















Some ugly computer and engineering buildings

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West Campus

A newer part of campus developed from the 50s onward.  Almost every building on this half of campus is built/renovated to at least LEED silver.

Love Manufacturing




Typical GT bus station, routes are posted at each station, most of which are covered, the marquee lets students know exactly down to the millisecond how much longer they’ll wait for a bus.


Health Services




Campus Recreation Center, originally built as the Olympic Aquatic Center, Tech took it over and enclosed it and expanded it.  The roof is covered in what once was the largest solar array in the world (340 kW) with PV panels developed at Tech by the GTResearch Institute.  Tech is a world leader in solar technology and many of the world’s current largest solar companies were started at Tech.  The structure is still the world’s largest suspended concrete structure, and the track is on the top level and provides great views of the skyline.




West campus dorms










Campus Challenge Course, LEED Gold




Manufacturing Research Center








Manufacturing Related Disciplines Complex




Most buildings weren’t pictured as there are just too many.  Tech also has its own research park nearby, but it’s hard to gain entry to that.

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10th Street Entrance to Tech



Our arena about to undergo a $45 million renovation


President’s house




Graduate living buildings




Turner Broadcasting Headquarters

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Along the Howell Mill side of Tech

Our puny liberal arts college, the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts


Wingnuts is a late night staple




Where students often get clothes for theme parties


Our just off campus coffee shop, Emory has one too, Jacksonville needs something even half as good…had a coffee from there this morning actually

[simms3]

Some Greek houses on campus.  Greek life at Georgia Tech is huge, from traditional fraternities/sororities to business fraternities to Indian and Jewish fraternities to secret societies, almost 40% of the campus is Greek or in a social club.

[simms3]

If anyone has any pictures from other universities, perhaps UF or FSU, those would be great!  I think FSU is pretty urban, but Tally is pretty small.  A lot of the universities not in Florida are very urban.

[thelakelander]

I don't have a number of images from any single university but here are a few from cities featured in the MJ Learning From series:

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI

The University of Michigan shapes Ann Arbor's economy significantly, employing 30,000 workers, including 7,500 in the medical center.

Much of the campus is adjacent to and intermixed with downtown Ann Arbor.  Because the campus and the city expanded side-by-side, there is often no firm divide between the two, with university buildings scattered through much of the city center.

More images here: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2009-sep-elements-of-urbanism-ann-arbor

[Miss Fixit]

Thanks for the great shots, Simms3.  I grew up in Atlanta and used to hang out at Tech with my dad while he was working on his PhD.  He was an undergraduate in the late 50s/early 60s and has great stories about those days.  I'm going to send him a link to your post - he'll enjoy seeing the pics, including his old frat house (Delta Tau Delta).

One of my earliest memories is of playing a computer game that involved delivering pizza for Everybody's on a room sized mainframe down the hall from dad's office.

[thelakelander]

Here are some random shots of University of Florida, taken in 2008.



















http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2008-nov-elements-of-urbanism-gainesville

[thelakelander]

Florida Southern College in Lakeland, FL.  It's small but I'd consider it a good urban example of what EWC could follow.

Florida Southern College (commonly referred to as Florida Southern or FSC) is a private college located in Lakeland, Florida. It was selected by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top ten Southern Comprehensive Colleges-Bachelors, and by The Princeton Review as a Best Southeastern College, a Best Value College, and included in the Best 366 Colleges: 2008, Florida Southern is the home of the world’s largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture.

History

The college was founded in Orlando in 1856, and moved to Leesburg in 1885 (some debate this to be the true establishment) under the sponsorship of the United Methodist Church and was open to both male and female students. It moved to Sutherland (now Palm Harbor) in 1901 and changed its name to Southern College. Due to fires in the early 1920s it was temporarily relocated to Clearwater Beach and then moved to Lakeland in 1922. In 1935 it was renamed Florida Southern College by the trustees.

The present campus comprises some 64 buildings on 100 acres of land and is the home of the largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world. The campus itself is designated a National Historic District, due to the historic significance of its buildings.

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-jul-elements-of-urbanism-lakeland







http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2007-nov-learning-from-lakeland

[billy]

Jackets !(I'm an alum, my nephew is there now)

[blandman]

Great tour!  I was at Tech from '99-'03...and I too lived in Towers my freshman year.  How many is "many" in reference to the number of students robbed at gunpoint on campus?  I was there for 4.5 years and don't remember it being that bad.  Thanks again!