The purpose of the Portman Prize and the Portman Visiting Critic Program is to foster design excellence and student creativity in the School of Architecture at Georgia Tech. The Portman Prize is awarded through competition by a distinguished jury chaired by the Portman Visiting Critic.       

- Georgia Institute of Technology

The Living Building Challenge is the built environment’s most rigorous performance standard. It calls for the creation of building projects that operates as cleanly, beautifully, and efficiently as nature’s architecture. To be certified under the Challenge, projects must meet a series of ambitious performance requirements.

- Living Future

This project generates a park-like atmosphere and fosters a new “hot spot” on the northern edge of Georgia Tech campus, which lacked a conducive area for students to socialize, study, and collaborate. The site design re-establishes the historic topography, creating a new wetland area as a nod to the creek that once existed.

Based on the created topography, the ideas of rich composition, wonder, complexity, and discovery manifest themselves in the Living Buil­ding. Looking to natural formations as massing strategies, dramatic spaces that manipulate scale, light, and texture take form, creating a strong dynamic between intimidation and playfulness. Spaces prompt fascination with the relationship of interior and exterior and the framed views to landscapes beyond. This interaction between the building and larger site programming is carefully calibrated to create a stronger correlation between the two.