Through a public/private venture of the Augusta State University Foundation and the University System of Georgia, students now are enjoying a new 48,000-square-foot, two-story Jaguar Student Activities Center, designed collaboratively by the Augusta firm 2KM Architects, Inc., and the Atlanta office of Lord, Aeck & Sargent. The new center is an addition to the Reese Library, a 1976 Late Modern building that did not easily lend itself to an addition. The architects met this challenge by matching the library’s red brick and cream-colored pre-cast concrete and created “gaps” between the two architectural styles with a new glass-ended “atrium street” that connects the library and the center. This atrium, lighted with clerestory windows, functions as a cyber café within Augusta State’s main campus quad and becomes the university’s new social heart. The addition also houses a kitchen, dining area, food court, formal ballroom/banquet hall, student activities offices, and study areas on its first floor. The second floor includes a fitness center, a game room, TV lounges, club meeting rooms, student government offices, campus newspaper and magazine offices, and additional study areas. The center completes the 10-year master plan for Augusta State’s main campus. (Photo © 2006 Fred Martin Jr.)

The members of the project team were:

• 2KM Architects, Inc., architect of record
• Lord, Aeck & Sargent, design architect, associate firm
• R.W. Allen & Associates, construction manager
• Carter & Associates, program manager
• Pruett, Ford & Associates, mechanical, plumbing and fire protection engineers
• Electrical Design Consultants, electrical engineers
• W.R. Toole Engineers, civil engineers and landscape architects
• Johnson, Laschober & Associates, structural engineers
• Davis Design Group, landscape architect.