NBA Celebrates 3 Wins at NAHB Best in American Living Awards
Two NBA projects were honored at the NAHB Best in American Living Awards during the 2024 International Builders’ Show (IBS) in Las Vegas! Celebrating its 40th anniversary, this esteemed awards program showcases home and community design excellence across the country. Whistler, an off-campus student housing property in Atlanta, GA, received a Platinum Award and a prestigious Best in Region Award for the South Atlantic. Flamingo Crossings Village West, housing and amenities for Disney’s College Intern Program, won a Gold Award in the Community Facility, 1000+Units category. Congratulations to both teams and our design partners for this recognition! Read below to learn more about the projects:
Category: Student Housing
Best in Region – South Atlantic
Project: Whistler
Developer: LV Collective
Within walking distance of Georgia Tech’s campus, Whistler is a 25-story, luxury off-campus student housing development and the latest addition to Tech Square, Midtown Atlanta’s hub for startups and research centers. The 565-bed community features 168 apartments and over 17,300-square-feet of boutique-style amenities. Students can treat themselves to craft coffee and artisan pastries at the on-site Daydreamer café, exercise in the expansive fitness center, or lounge poolside on the rooftop deck while enjoying panoramic skyline views.
“It’s hard to believe this gorgeous development is for students. The architecture is absolutely stunning, with an amazing entryway and streetscape. The balconies provide a sexy exterior look. Inside, the abundance of biophilia speaks to current student generation, with plenty of community amenities for them to utilize.”
When you can’t build out, build up. This thoughtfully considered tower is designed to take full advantage of its half-acre footprint at 859 Spring Street. A design/build delivery, Whistler sits on the SPI-16 zoning ordinance, which encourages minimizing the amount of vehicular parking and increasing the use of alternative modes of transportation and mobility. The 284,839-square-foot property is served with one level of basement parking totaling 25 spaces—encouraging a continued reliance on biking, walking, scooters, and public transportation with proximity to Atlanta’s MARTA lines. The dynamic design of mid-grey tones starts with a stacked base of amenities to activate the street, and draws the eye up with slender, mini towers and rhythmically shifting balconies slightly offset from each other to create a dynamic façade instead of a static block.
Warm and welcoming, the curated amenities are reminiscent of a boutique hotel. Entering the double-height lobby from the street, residents have access to the on-site Daydreamer café with shaded outdoor seating to help with street presence and engage pedestrians. Walking up the stairs, ample private and group study spaces, podcast room, and a dog spa can be found on the mezzanine level. Taking the elevator past the next 23 residential floors, level 24 features penthouse units, a sky lounge, two saunas, and a rooftop deck with grilling stations, an infinity edge pool and hot tub overlooking the city. When tenants step off the elevator on the 25th floor, they arrive at the expansive fitness center, which offers state-of-the-art equipment, yoga studio, spin studio and a unique fitness on-demand room with two interactive mirrors. The fitness center makes up the entire top floor, and the unbeatable views of Atlanta are more than enough to keep residents motivated during their workouts.
Ready for Georgia Tech’s Fall 2023 semester, Whistler is the popular new kid on the block that accomplishes the city’s initiative to create a more pedestrian-friendly environment within Midtown, while providing students unmatched amenity spaces and views of the city and campus.
Whistler Project Team: LV Collective (Developer), Niles Bolton Associates (Architect), JE Dunn Construction (Contractor), ENGR3 Consulting Engineers (Mechanical & Plumbing Engineer), Power Design (Electrical), SkyDancing Consultant Associates, Inc. (Structural Engineer), Variant Collaborative (Interior Designer), Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. (Civil Engineer), Ironwood Design Group, LLC (Landscape Architect)
Category: Community Facility, 1000+ Units
Project: Flamingo Crossings Village West
Owner, Manager and Developer: American Campus Communities
With a 93-acre site and over 1.9 million square feet of programmed space, Flamingo Crossings Village West, designed as half of Walt Disney World’s new home for its College Intern Program, is itself the scale of a small college. The site plan creates a pedestrian-oriented experience for the 5,156 residents by pushing parking and vehicular traffic to the periphery and centering amenities in the heart of the property, to which all neighborhood pathways lead. Every aspect of the new live/learn/play community strives to surprise and delight residents while reflecting the client’s unique history, culture, brand, and commitment to distinctive placemaking.
The Community Center features an open porch, a colonnade where residents can escape a sudden downpour or shelter from the sun. The form acts as a contemporary front door for the project. Facing the pool, the streamlined south elevation is broken by a glass ‘iceberg,’ a fritted glass shard that allows the inside to pop out in a playful way. On the second level, an outdoor terrace overlooks the amenity hub. Expansive beyond imagination, outdoor amenities include two resort-style zero entry swimming pools with jumbotrons, a graduation lawn, fire pits, courtyard seating, grilling stations, outdoor sports courts and playing fields.
From a design standpoint, a unique challenge was how to make the residential property feel like Disney without using intellectual property. The team made multiple trips to the parks researching hardscapes, interiors, architectural details, and space planning that all together embody a Disney experience. Implementing such lessons in the amenity areas helped create the feel of a resort with surprise moments throughout the property tailored to its purpose of a residential campus. Specific examples include hidden flamingos throughout the community center (a play on the world-famous ‘Hidden Mickey’), artwork that uniquely comes to life with shadows and sun, and lush landscaping. Subtle but unexpected architectural details such as iridescent blue green Alpolic metal panels at the community center and security pavilion juxtapose the clean exterior palette of limestone, low-e clear glazing, and warm wood-tones to further highlight the touch of magic seen across the property.
The housing design uses a courtyard prototype with the neighborhood city grid: it is inherently efficient at both maximizing four story density and providing openness and a sense of community. The buildings’ exteriors were designed along a changeable spectrum within the DNA of its plan: from modern flat roofed forms with faceted insets, to a more Florida-vernacular that breaks up its massing into a group of enjambed ‘houses’ with steeper gables. The accent color palette and building names on the West property were inspired by beloved Disney characters Figment, Genie, Judy Hopps, Iago and Jiminy Cricket.
No detail was overlooked when designing this residential campus. Now complete, Flamingo Crossings Village West is a one-of-a-kind facility that exudes magic, sparking creativity, connectivity, and community at every turn.
Flamingo Crossings Village West project team: American Campus Communities (Owner, Manager and Developer), Niles Bolton Associates (Architect), FaverGray (General Contractor), Jordan & Skala Engineers (MEP Engineer), Veitas Engineers (Structural Engineer), Niles Bolton Associates (Landscape Architect), Niles Bolton Associates (Interior Designer), Kelly, Collins & Gentry, Inc. (Civil Engineer), PLANNET (Low Voltage/Security/Audio-Visual Engineer), Morrison Hershfield (Waterproofing Consultant)