Kia Training Facility
The Kia Training Facility takes its form through utilization of building principles shared by Korea and the American South. Traditional Korean architecture of house and temple, and southern vernacular architecture of the dogtrot, shed and plantation house are all derived as specific responses to landscape, climate, function, local craft and symbol. Done well, they combine to create simple, purposeful and beautiful buildings.
The Training Facility site is a 30-acre cotton farm adjacent to the flood waters of the Chattahoochee River and the 1600-acre factory site. The facility was planned to minimize the impact on the land and preserve intact a major slice of the existing landscape, including a century-old pecan grove.
The building is a simple rectangle, carefully placed on the sloping site to form three unequal and distinct exterior zones: a service zone, a formal garden, and the framing of a natural bowl in the landscape, with Kia's factory site beyond. The simple program includes classrooms, public meeting spaces and a factory simulation area with broad southern views of the landscape. A shared circulation porch connects major spaces, provides desirable deep shade to the south -facing glass and offers simultaneous views of the internal training processes and outward landscape.