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AT&T

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The Alabama Headquarters of AT&T was designed in 1978, decades before the introduction of LEED, yet the architects utilized smart siting, passive heating and active resource allocation to reduce the building’s energy costs by 40% compared to a similar facility of its era.

 

Quoting James A. Murphy’s 1982 editorial in Progressive Architecture, “All of this came about because the client proposed a very responsible set of program goals, and the architects deftly attained them. The program called for minimal alteration of the natural site qualities and specific that ‘energy conservation must be foremost…’ in the building design. The 50-acre site is, indeed, endowed with great beauty, with its steep wooded slopes. It is not easy to tuck a 450,000sf building and 1,500 parking spaces away in the woods, but the AOC is a minimal intrusion. When the full effect of the extensive new planting takes hold, it is easy to predict that the compound will have an almost profound beauty. Planted in tall natural grasses, the whole roof will become a meadow, camouflaging what little is visible above roof level now – the skylights and solar collector arrays.”

 

Winner/Design Competition/South Central Bell
Honor Award/AIA Gulf States Region
Merit Award/ASLA
Vision Award for Continued Excellence/Horizon 280 Association
Published/Progressive Architecture
Published/Engineering News Record
Gateway to Energy Conservation Award
Honorable Mention/National Energy Conservation/Owens-Coming
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