Atlanta Trip

Atlanta Trip

by: Sam Harshman

Last week (8/28/12-8/30/12) my studio class and I, went on a class trip to Atlanta, Ga.  The reason for this trip was to visit the Olympic Legacy site.  Our project this semester is to design a section of the Olympic Legacy Site in Rio de Janeiro for after the 2016 summer Olympics.  This trip was to see how the city of Atlanta handled their post Olympic Legacy Site, and to try to take something from it that will contribute to our current project in Rio.  I am just going to write about a couple of the things that I took notice of that I believe will help me in my project.

            1.) The majority of the Legacy Site in Atlanta is a park.  Centennial Park to be exact.  The first time I seen the park was from a 74th floor restaurant in a 74 story building, just a couple of blocks from the park. Looking down at the park from our seats, the park did not seem that impressive. The next morning we toured the park on foot.  I could not have been more wrong.  We started on the south end of the park where there is a fountain in the shape of the Olympic rings.  Kids were running through the water and playing around the fountain.  I say kids, but it was actually just some of the students in my class. Anyway, we proceeded north through the park stopping at all the monuments and fountains taking pictures, sketching, or just gazing at what we saw.  The park was full of little sections of "quilts," fountains, trees, and monuments.  A few of the sections made it feel like you were in a woods and not in the middle of a big city.  One of my favorite sections had multiple monuments, with different sports and the names of all the people who won medals.  In Centennial Park, I could just feel that the Olympics had been held there.

            2.) The next night ten of us went to watch an Atlanta Braves game.  One reason was to check out the field that they play on, Turner Field.  Turner Field was one of the venues that held the opening ceremonies for the 1996  Olympics.  The other reason was to check off another field to visit off my list. (I am a pretty big baseball fan.)  The ballpark was very nice but something bothered me more than it probably should have.  Being in the stadium, I could not tell the Olympics had been held there.  There was nothing, that I could see, that showed any relationship to the Olympics.  Being one of the major icons of the Olympics, you would think it would have.  On a higher note, Chipper Jones, one of my favorite baseball players, had the one and only run of the night in a 1-0 Braves win!

Hopefully I can take some of the things that I observed in Atlanta and design a site, just as nice, if not better, than Centennial Park.