Lanier Technical College

Lanier Technical College

HGOR led the design thought process for the master planning of Lanier Technical College to re-envision how a commuter campus can be shaped with the student experience at the core, in lieu of a vehicular-centered campus. With special attention on creating the right size quadrangle space, the campus now allows for both ease of circulation by car and meaningful social interactions by students and faculty.

In addition to creating a top-of-the-line facility with impactful and purposeful spaces, the plan utilizes efficiencies in layout and the acute manipulation of grade relationships to provide the college with significant value in both infrastructure and long-term maintenance costs. Incorporating existing landforms and abandoned infrastructure were all part of the larger vision to provide the spaces the college deserved for the price tag they required.

Today, the campus serves over 3,000 students and will grow to 5,000. Lanier Technical College proudly offers various programs of study in some of the nation’s fastest-growing career fields, including healthcare, energy, business and industry, and public and private service. The campus, which opened in October of 2018, has been a model of what is possible for technical colleges throughout the region and has had a 100% job placement rate for six years in a row.

DESIGN PROCESS

To re-imagine the design of a technical college campus, HGOR led the planning efforts from the initial design charrette process through design development and installation. The charrette process resulted in three big ideas each with unique circulation patterns - a linear layout modeled around a workplace environment (right), a “main street” village layout (middle), and a traditional campus quad layout (left). Ultimately, the traditional layout was selected for its multi-functionality and student-centered environment.