By Melissa Alonso | October 2026 - Atlanta, GA
Antinori Village, a hillside cluster of artist cabins designed by Atlanta firm BLDGS, appears in the September 2026 issue of Architectural Record, the magazine's annual Record Houses edition, now in its 70th year. The firm is led by Brian Bell and David Yocum, Professors of the Practice in Georgia Tech's School of Architecture.
The project is profiled in a special section on artist accommodations and is also featured on Architectural Record's website.
Completed in October 2025, the village is the newest addition to the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, a 600-acre arts residency in Rabun County founded in 1934 by weaver Mary Crovatt Hambidge. The new cabins support short, collaborative workshops led by visiting artists.
Rabun County sees nearly 70 inches of rain a year, and the design treats that rainfall as a feature. Angled roofs and long scuppers carry water over the stairs and decks into stone-lined channels that wind through the forest. Paired cabins step down the steep slope, joined by open breezeways that echo the dogtrot cabin where Hambidge once lived. The exteriors are clad in cedar charred using the Japanese yakisugi technique, a dark, textured finish that resembles the surrounding bark.
"The Antinori Village presents a constellation of geometries that, when experienced in person, is not static or hierarchical, but interwoven and unfolding," said Bell. "The experience is not so much disorienting as it is multi-orienting. Using standard architectonic elements (vertical walls, straight beams, parallel joists, etc.), their varied arrangement directs attention outward: to the spaces between rooms and buildings, to gathering spaces, and into the forest."
The village houses eight artists, a number chosen so everyone fits around one dinner table. Shared meals take place in the Commons, whose porch extends into the stone ruins of a historic hunting lodge and hosts performances and free community workshops.
"Brian and David bring the insight and rigor of their practice directly into the life of our School," said Julie Ju-Youn Kim, FAIA, William H. Harrison Professor and Chair of the School of Architecture. "Antinori Village beautifully demonstrates how thoughtful design can respond to place, climate, and community. We are proud to have faculty whose work contributes to contemporary architectural practice while enriching and expanding the education of our students."