The Atlanta Beltline, one of the largest, most wide-ranging urban redevelopment programs in the United States, has received one of the most prestigious awards in landscape architecture—the Award of Excellence in Urban Design from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).
The annual ASLA Professional Awards program acknowledges exceptional projects that define and move the profession of landscape architecture forward.
The Atlanta Beltline is the realization of an ambitious collective vision to reorganize access to goods and services, greenspace, housing, and transit options across 45 historic neighborhoods around Atlanta. Inspired by the walkability and scale of Paris’s urban experience, the Beltline has transformed a 22-mile corridor of mostly abandoned industrial railroad infrastructure into a continuous multi-use trail, linear arboretum, and multimodal loop around the city. The project has been not only transformational for the physical city, but it has also changed the way people think about living in Atlanta.
The corridor comprises the tracks of several linked 19th-century railroad lines, encircling the city center. Originally intended to enable the railroads to bypass the city center, the integrated system of rail lines has found a second life by connecting intown neighborhoods to each other and restoring unity and cohesion to the urban fabric.
“Perkins&Will established the design parameters to tie together our 22-mile corridor in a cohesive manner. Fourteen years later, these typologies still inform our trail designs and remain mostly unchanged. Additionally, it was integral as a lead and a sub on, respectively, our Eastside and Westside Trails that established various material selections that have been standardized on all our other segments.
Perkins&Will has been our partner in fundamentally and positively changing the very fabric of a major American urban core.”
— Kevin Burke, FASLA, Director of Design, Atlanta Beltline
Development of the Atlanta Beltline design typologies coincided with the documentation of the Eastside Trail, the project’s first completed segment. Over a 10-month period in regular meetings with the client, the design team leveraged the coincidence to explore and evaluate ideas under real-world conditions, leading to a stronger design in support of the final organizing strategy: “22 miles of continuity through 22 miles of variety.” Design elements inspired by the corridor’s historic railroad identity create continuity, while an ever-changing landscape provides variety. The interplay of continuity and variety mimics the rhythm of the railroad path as it passes through the city’s diverse communities.
Fifteen years into the project, approximately $766 million in public investment has led to more than $8.2 billion in private investment. 3,833 of the planned 5,600 affordable housing units along the corridor have been constructed or preserved to date. Constructed trail segments have set a new benchmark for public realm design and execution in Atlanta, inviting new and existing businesses to orient their storefronts to the activated greenways. The Beltline has catalyzed an altogether different type of development for Atlanta: dense, urban, pedestrian-focused, socially cohesive environments. With the 22-mile loop scheduled for completion in 2030, the project will continue to evolve a civic and cultural space that is at once deeply rooted in the city’s history, deeply committed to its future well-being, and unlike any other Atlanta experience.
2024 Awards Jury
The Atlanta Beltline will be featured in the September 2024 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine. Read more about the award-winning project on ASLA’s website.
