Uzun+Case is a structural engineering firm that opened in Atlanta in 1993 with seven people and now employs more than 70 across offices in Atlanta, Chicago and Raleigh. The practice covers new building structures, renovation and adaptive reuse, and parking, and works across commercial, institutional and residential sectors in the Southeast and nationally. The firm is structural engineer on the Georgia State Capitol restoration and the new eight-story legislative office building beside it, working with architect Lord Aeck Sargent under a $392 million state appropriation. Restoration work on a 137-year-old statehouse involves structural repair sequenced around legislative sessions, which is a different problem from new construction and a good indication of the kind of existing-building work the firm takes on. Its Atlanta office is on Peachtree Street in Midtown.
The award shelf gives a fair picture of where this office is strong, because the recognitions are technical rather than aesthetic.
400 H took the Structural Engineering Association of North Carolina’s award for Excellence in Structural Engineering, New Construction Over $100M. The Kendeda Building at Georgia Tech won first place in the Public Works, Education category from the American Concrete Institute’s Georgia chapter. Piedmont Atlanta Hospital’s Marcus Tower took ACI Georgia’s Outstanding Achievement in the High Rise category in 2021. The Georgia Aquarium earned a National Honor Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies back in 2007. Concrete engineering associations, twice, on very different building types.
The FORTH Atlanta hotel is the project the firm writes about at length, and it is a good example of what structural engineering looks like when the structure is the finish. The 19-story boutique hotel, part of the 760 Ralph McGill development, is wrapped in a diagrid of exposed cast-in-place, mild-reinforced concrete columns that project twelve inches forward of the structural slab. Exposed cast-in-place concrete leaves no room to correct a placement error after the forms come off, and a diagrid means the architectural pattern and the load path are the same thing.
The portfolio spans roughly 5,000 square feet to over 2.5 million, across the United States and the Caribbean, which is the firm’s way of saying the office is not organised around a single project scale.
Three offices carry the work. Atlanta is at 1230 Peachtree Street NE, Suite 2500, on 678.553.5200. Chicago is at 330 N Wabash Avenue on the 23rd floor. Raleigh is at One Bank of America Plaza, 421 Fayetteville Street.
Founding principal Jim Case taught Integrated Building Systems at Georgia Tech through the spring 2024 semester, a course built around the premise that architects and engineers now work in an increasingly integrated and computerised environment. That teaching connection is consistent with the practice’s stated position as creative partners rather than a consultancy taking finished drawings over the wall.
