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
