Treetide Office Building

Designing with Nature: Biophilic Inspiration at the Tideline CPA Office in Mount Pleasant, SC

Set on an infill lot in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the new 11,000-square-foot headquarters for Tideline CPA Group demonstrates how architecture can respectfully and creatively respond to its environment. At the heart of the design is a historic 49-inch live oak tree — a natural monument that became both the literal and symbolic anchor for the entire project. Rather than seeing the tree as a constraint, the team collectively embraced it as a generative force, shaping the building’s form, materiality, and experience around its presence.

The structure's L-shaped footprint was carefully composed to wrap around the live oak, creating a visual and spatial dialogue between the built and natural environments. This configuration carves out a passive outdoor courtyard beneath the tree’s canopy, where filtered sunlight and greenery create a natural atmosphere for informal gatherings and outdoor work breaks. From nearly every interior workspace, occupants maintain a strong visual connection to this central tree — a daily reminder of the enduring presence of nature and the benefits of working in harmony with it.

The building draws heavily on biophilic design principles, which seek to strengthen the human connection to nature through architecture. Inspired by the natural hierarchy of forest ecology, the design metaphorically treats the building as part of the understory — a supporting element to the grand canopy of the live oak. This metaphor informed everything from the structural rhythm to the material palette. Repeating brick pilasters across the façade suggest the trunks of younger trees in a grove, creating a steady cadence and grounding the building visually. Between the pilasters, chevron-patterned panels evoke the textures of bark and leaf veins, subtly referencing the intricate patterns found in the surrounding landscape.

The interior design continues this natural dialogue. Expanses of glass allow daylight to flood into every office and meeting space while maintaining a visual relationship with the outdoors. Wood accents — from ceiling details to interior finishes — bring warmth and tactility to the otherwise clean-lined modern structure, further enhancing the sense of calm and comfort that biophilic spaces are known to foster. Together, these elements create a working environment that not only looks out toward nature, but also feels intrinsically connected to it. The project seeks to be a thoughtful example of how a commercial building can elevate workplace well-being while paying homage to its context.

Client: Tideline CPA

GC: Harbor Contracting

Structural: ADC Engineering

MPE: Charleston Engineering

Landscape Architect: The Tomblin Company

Civil Engineer: Seabrook Engineering

Photos: Chris Smith

“Rush and Judy Dixon were a great partner for our project.  In addition to great visual design, they captured details and followed up on them, adjusted design as needed to help us stay with budget and promptly addressed needs throughout the project.   Rush and Judy are a talented team and at the same time approach the work with humility.  We are happy to endorse them any time.” Melonie Hammond-Trace

Treetide Office Building

The design approach for this 11,000sf office building responded to the historic 49” Live Oak tree on the property, both literally and figuratively. The “L” shape footprint wraps the tree allowing for a strong visual connection for the building occupants and a passive outdoor gathering area under its limbs. The building facade explores repetition of understory trees through the repeating brick pilasters and weaves abstract patterns and textures of bark and leaves into the detailing.

Aiding in the study of biophilic design, the prominent tree on the property served as the main driver of decisions related to the site design, landscape architecture and building design. An effort was made to ensure that the building and its occupants be able to engage with the tree in a meaningful way. This engagement began with a metaphor of the canopy trees and the understory trees. As the proverbial understory trees, the building attempts to embody patterns, textures, rhythms, and filtered light as a way to connect the building and those inside to the natural landscape while preserving the historic tree.

The resultant design evokes a solidness and sturdiness as well as vast amounts of glass allowing all of the interior workspaces to be visually connected to the outdoors. Chevron details in between the brick pilasters are derived from patterning found in nature while wood elements bring a warmth to the structure.

General Contractor: Harbor Contracting

Civil Engineer: Seabrook Engineering

Landscape Architecture: The Tomblin Company

Architecture: Rush Dixon Architects

Structural Engineering: ADC Engineering

MPE Engineering: Charleston Engineering

Brighton's Court at Nexton

The vision for Brighton’s Court, a pair of commercial buildings on Brighton Park Boulevard in the Nexton community, is to create a welcoming retail and office environment through deliberate architecture and site planning. The buildings engage the street and benefit from a central courtyard gathering area envisioned to have specialty trees, seating, and catenary lights to create an inviting outdoor room for employees and patrons.

The general architectural direction is informed by the client’s neighboring building, Coastal Fertility Specialists, and strives for clarity in form, varied textures, and engaging entrances and spaces. The buildings are “book-matched” along the courtyard axis and are massed so that the outer ends of the buildings are weighted “bookends” to the overall composition. The heavy masonry forms gradually erode toward the courtyard, enhancing the connection between the indoor and outdoor spaces. Composite wood and glass becomes more prevalent toward the courtyard emphasizing this gradient concept.

This project is under the purview of the Nexton Design Committee and thus their design manual. Per the architectural guidelines, “Garden offices should combine materials thoughtfully and offer an opportunity to explore and blur the boundaries between discrete inside and outside experiences. The temperate climate should be exploited through development of exterior spaces. Forms and architectural devices should be developed to emphasize the human scale of these workplaces.”

Project Team

• Harbor Contracting - General Contracting

• Empire Engineering - Civil Engineering

• ADC Engineering - Structural Engineering

• Charleston Engineering - Mechanical, Electrical + Plumbing Engineering

• Belk Lucy: Leasing Agent

Bird’s eye view of the two “book-matched” buildings and central courtyard.

Diagram showing the gradient concept For building massing from heavy to light - blurring the line between inside and outside

Sweetgrass Pharmacy at Carolina Park

During the first design meeting with the Owner’s of Sweetgrass Pharmacy, we discussed the architecture of the building reinforcing their existing pharmacy brand, the use of natural looking materials to provide a warm and welcoming building and the desire for a forward-looking, modern building to match the innovation that happens in their compounding lab. The property fronts Park Avenue Boulevard in Carolina Park, Mount Pleasant, which allowed for the building to hold a strong street presence with the main customer entrance, a take on the corner store entry, near the parking and drive-through lane. Materials were chosen for their warmth, texture and durability, and include Meridian Brick “Magnolia Bay” in queen size, Nichiha Vintage Wood siding in a cedar tone and Hardie Artisan V-Groove siding.

Main customer entry with an angled inset and steep canopy is a contemporary derivative of the corner store entry.

Detail view of main corner entrance with angled steel canopy.

Daytime view from Park Avenue Boulevard in Carolina Park, Mount Pleasant.

Evening view from Park Avenue Boulevard in Carolina Park, Mount Pleasant.

Ruins of Glendale Mill

Our design inspiration travels are a little closer to home these pandemic days with a recent trip to Glendale, just outside of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Truth be told, it was our son who suggested the field trip to the Glendale Mill site, after researching abandoned buildings to photograph. In this case all that remains of the original cotton mill are two smoke stacks and two stair towers.

Built in the 1830s and originally called the Bivingsville Mill, this was one of SC’s most important and continuously operating mills. (Click here for a video on the history of the mill.) In 2004 a catastrophic fire destroyed the majority of the building; the remains of which and surrounding land have become a preserve thanks to Spartanburg County.

Photos by Rush David Dixon IV:

The Offices at Belle Hall

Commercial office design doesn’t often start with details; it begins with big picture math - proformas, core factors, totals of leasable space, parking calcs, etc. While all of these formulas came into play early and often during the design of this speculative office building, we were able to focus equally on the small design moments that seek to make a building and space unique.

Glass guardrail system with stainless steel hardware.

Warm walnut paneling contrasts the white terrazzo stair treads and tile flooring.

Tenant entrances each have frameless glass doors with walnut surrounds.

Exterior entrance introduces you to the wood and slat elements in conjunction with charcoal painted steel.

Metal wall panels and brick are the primary exterior materials - balancing a sense of permanence with a contemporary aesthetic.

Coastal Fertility Specialists - Nexton

South Carolina’s premier fertility center, Coastal Fertility Specialists, is expanding to the Nexton neighborhood to better serve patients in the Summerville area. As experienced experts with high pregnancy rates and national patient satisfaction awards, Coastal Fertility Specialists wanted a forward-thinking, modern design. Due date: 2020

Brighton Park Blvd. Street Elevation

Entry Drive Elevation