ALABAMA OPERATIONS CENTER FOR BELLSOUTH

The Alabama Headquarters of South Central Bell (now BellSouth) is the epitome of a modern, energy-efficient office building.  Designed in 1978, decades before LEED ratings and the green architecture movement, Giattina Fisher & Company (now Giattina Aycock Architecture  Studio, Inc.) designed the Alabama Operations Center for South Central Bell (now BellSouth) with 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.

In 1978, prior to its construction, the unbuilt design was awarded Honorable Mention in the coveted Owens-Corning Energy Award competition.  Upon completion of construction, the facility received acclaim in the publication Architectural Record, and won numerous local, state and regional design awards.

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 450,000 sq. ft. 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.”

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