The New World of Coca-Cola

Facility Pays Homage to the Bottler’s Roots With Modern-Day, High-Tech Features

By Debra Wood

With its new World of Coca-Cola, the Coca-Cola Co. has created an iconic, interactive attraction across from Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta.

advertisement

“The mission of the new World of Coca-Cola is to be a physical manifestation of the mission, vision and values of the Coca-Cola Co.,” says Haven Riviere, vice president of marketing operations for Coca Cola, who was responsible for the development and opening of the new attraction. The company’s mission statement, called the “Coca-Cola promise,” is: "The Coca-Cola Company exists to benefit and refresh everyone who is touched by our business.”

Coca-Cola created the original World of Coke in 1990 to meet consumer demand to see company artifacts. During the ensuing years, the company grew, adding brands, and people’s entertainment preferences changed.

“The old facility was ‘museumesque,’ static,” Riviere says. “People digest information differently now. It’s a much faster-paced world.”

The New World

Construction manager Holder, Manhattan and Moody, a joint venture of Holder Construction, Manhattan Construction and C.D. Moody Construction, all with Atlanta offices, built the 92,000-sq-ft, two-story, steel-frame attraction, which shares a 20-acre site with the Georgia Aquarium. The contracting team started construction of the $97 million project in May 2005.

“We needed an architecture substantial enough in its mass to help balance the 500,000-sq-ft-aquarium,” Riviere says. “We also needed something that fit well within the city.”

Riviere adds that the new World’s red brick-clad eastern facade plays off Atlanta’s past architectural history, while the contemporary portion of the building blends with the new buildings to the west.

“We needed an architecture that helped communicate our heritage and our optimism about the future,” Riviere says.

Jerde Partnership of Venice, Calif., created the master plan and architect of record Rosser International of Atlanta brought the concepts to fruition

“It’s a deceptively complex building,” says Paul Kinzie, project architect with Rosser. “It has a lot of components that must fit together with exactness.”

In addition to red-clay brick, the exterior includes glass curtain wall, stucco and a steel frame wall with archistone panels, which give the appearance of stone. Original plans called for limestone, but it became cost prohibitive, Kinzie says. 

“It’s unusual to have that many exterior skin treatments on one building,” adds Bill Headley, project director for Holder, Manhattan and Moody. “Archistone looks like precast concrete, but it’s cast in smaller panels that can be installed by hand.”

A 120-ft-long, 40-ft-high canopy cantilevers over the entrance. Although initially envisioned to have a thin profile, structural soundness required corded steel.

“The entrance canopy was extraordinarily difficult to coordinate,” says Brian Thomas, project manager for Holder. “There were dimensional issues of trying to get the steel hidden within the canopy.”

A 30-ft iconic Coke bottle hangs suspended in a 90-ft-tall block of simulated ice through which guests enter the attraction.

“The doors open and you walk into an ice cave that is the bottom of the 90-ft tower,” Riviere says. “If you touch the sides, it’s cold to the touch, frosted and gives the body an immediate chill and moment of refreshment.”

The original concept to build the box of Plexiglas proved too technically difficult and expensive, Kinzie says. Instead, the team opted for point-supported, cable-stayed glass panels. The imported glass has ceramic fritting. A special air-conditioning system cools the area.

Inside

Once guests finish watching the introductory movie, the screen lifts and they walk through a tunnel to enter The Hub, a 75-ft-high, large glass cylinder, from which they are free to wander through various galleries.

“It’s a reflective area for people to congregate and sit around,” Kinzie says. “If you stand in that space, you can look up to the 15th floor of the Coca-Cola tower and see [the location of] the chairman’s office.”

The team substituted curtain wall for the initially planned cable-stay system. The Hub’s glass walls angle up and away from the building at a 15-degree angle.

“It leans outwards and has to transition to where the glass goes vertical, which was probably the most difficult detailing,” Thomas says. “There were precise field measurements and coordination meetings.”

The glass reinforces Coca-Cola’s objective of corporate transparency and its concern for the environment, Riviere says.

That interest in sustainability led to the incorporation of many green features. The company and its design and construction team will apply for LEED certification.

“We’re striving for a high level of certification,” says Jeff Ross-Bain, senior associate and LEED accredited professional with Smith Dalia Architects of Atlanta.

A white roof, light-colored paving materials and green space reduces the heat-island effect. Waterless urinals and low-flow fixtures will help reduce water use by an estimated 40%, compared to a comparable building. Shading devices and control systems should reduce energy use by 30%.

The project team purchased primarily recycled or reusable interior materials produced locally. The wood comes from sustainable forests. Holder estimates that it diverted from a landfill as much as 93% of the construction waste.

First Floor Exhibits

“The majority of the exhibit spaces were designed inside out,” says Randy Vuksta, creative director for Jack Rouse Associates of Cincinnati, the exhibit designer. “We looked at the show elements, and Jerde wrapped the architectural elements around those pieces.”

The exhibit spaces include interactive displays, geared to children and adults, where guests can learn more details about designing the corporate logo or hear people tell their own stories about the company.

From the first floor Hub, guests can enter the Milestones of Refreshment exhibit, a humidity- and temperature-controlled gallery displaying artifacts, including a soda fountain from a local drug store and an early delivery truck from Argentina. Because of its size, the truck was brought inside the building before the structure was enclosed, and crews built a crate around the vehicle to protect it during construction.

A fully functional, modern bottling facility fills commemorative bottles with Coke Classic, which are handed to guests when they leave. Coca-Cola decided to add the production facility after construction began, and that meant dealing with utilities that crisscrossed the location selected for the bottling plant. The bottling line required installation of a secondary electrical service and modification of the heating and ventilation systems to meet Food and Drug Administration requirements, Thomas says.

“We had to get the equipment in early and finish the walls around it,” he adds. “It was a coordination issue, as the owner was providing the equipment.”

Second Floor Entertainment

Seats rock, mist sprays and air puffs in coordination with a film in the Secret Formula 4D Theater. To deliver that experience, crews ran a power line, water and two air lines to each seat under tight tolerances of 3 in. It also necessitated installation of a reverse osmosis system to make sure the water was clean enough to be sprayed into guests’ faces.

The Perfect Pauses Theater highlights Coke advertising campaigns and the Pop Culture gallery displays artistic expressions created by people inspired by the brand. Guests can sample, in 100% recyclable cups, more than 50 beverages from around the world in the Taste It area. From there, guests enter a retail store, filled with items made from recycled plastic.

The new World of Coca-Cola opened in May, in time for the bottling company’s Founder’s Day celebration.

World of Coca-Cola Project Team

Owner: Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta
Master Planner: Jerde Partnership, Venice, Calif.
Architect of Record (building): Rosser International, Atlanta
Exhibit Designer: Jack Rouse Associates, Cincinnati
Green Building Consultant: Smith Dalia Architects, Atlanta
Construction Manager: Holder, Manhattan and Moody, a joint venture between Holder Construction, Manhattan Construction and C.D. Moody Construction, all of Atlanta Bottling Line Engineering Consultant: Krones AG, Franklin, Wis.

Useful Sources:

NEW World of Coca-Cola
http://www.woccatlanta.com