Reinventing the Familiar
Public housing faces a paradox. Many of the buildings that provided affordable shelter for generations now struggle to meet today’s expectations for accessibility, energy performance, and livability. However, these structures hold social and even architectural value that cannot be replaced easily or economically. The renovation of Jones Village in Dublin, Georgia -a 50-unit community originally constructed in 1952—offered our team at SRJ Architects an opportunity to reconcile that tension between past and future.
The goal was simple but ambitious: transform a mid-century housing project into a contemporary, dignified multi-family neighborhood—without displacing Residents or erasing the community’s identity. Along the way, we learned valuable lessons about technical coordination, phasing, and the profound effect of design on Residents.
Architects sometimes get a bad rap for being perfectionists — even a little nit-picky. But in truth, that meticulousness is one of the profession’s greatest strengths. When precision meets vision, and execution meets with intent, something remarkable happens: the result isn’t just code-compliant — it’s purposeful.
If you’ve ever undertaken a significant home-remodeling project, or even sold a house, you’ve probably been jaded by the dreaded phrase “not-to-code”. But it’s easy to forget that every line of code represents a lesson learned by failure. Sometimes, even the most seemingly imperceptible deviations from code become industry changing— as was the case for the aviation industry and British Airways Flight 5390.
More than three decades ago, on June 10, 1990, what began as a routine flight from Birmingham to Málaga very nearly ended in tragedy when just 13 minutes after takeoff, at around 17,000 feet, the cockpit windshield blew out. As the aircraft’s altitude increased, climbing toward ~17,300 ft (5,270 m) passengers heard a loud bang. The cockpit filled with condensation, the cabin suddenly depressurized, and the left cockpit windshield was entirely sucked out of its frame. The flight’s captain, Tim Lancaster, who had just loosened his harness moments before, was propelled from his seat by the force of decompression and violently ejected headfirst out of the flight deck. In what some would consider an act of divine providence, Tim’s ankles became trapped in the control column, which acted as a last anchor, preventing him from being altogether dragged into the sky. The flight’s autopilot system disengaged, causing the plane to descend rapidly. The flight deck door was also blown inward onto the control console, blocking the throttle control and causing an increase in acceleration as they plummeted toward the ground. Flight documents and check lists were blown out of the cockpit, debris blew in from the passenger cabin, and the wind noise was so loud two-way communication with ground control became impossible.
At SRJ, we figured there was no better way to support our Troops than to start through our very own.
Sonya has two sons in the Navy and David has one son in the Marines, so we put together three care packages to send to them to show our gratitude and appreciation for their service to our country. We appreciate everything that these young men and the rest of the Armed Forces do for our freedom and protection and wanted to show a small token of appreciation through some care packages.
SRJ continues to show our support for our local heroes on the “front lines” - our healthcare community. May God bless and protect all of you always.
April 2, 2020
To SRJ’s Clients, Consultants, and Friends of our Firm:
As we are all aware, COVID-19 is causing great concern and substantial interruption nationwide. I want to assure you that SRJ Architects Inc. is following the recommendations of the CDC, local authorities, as well as other public health agencies while still continuing, to the best of our ability, our business operations. Specifically, SRJ is practicing social distancing, restricting non-essential travel, deferring all in-person meetings to virtual meetings as much as possible, and educating our employees on the recommendations of the above listed authorities. We will continue to monitor the status of our Projects with you, as well as the latest developments of the impacts of COVID-19. In the next several weeks, we will update you with any substantial changes in our daily business operations.
Currently our office is open and operating, per jurisdictional guidelines. Our management team continues to monitor the fluid COVID-19 situation and has adopted new procedures within our offices to ensure the health and well-being of you and our staff. We have also developed, and will continue to develop, contingency plans, so that we remain in a position of strength to continue our Projects remotely, if and when needed, for the weeks and months to come.
As you know, this situation is constantly evolving. I want you to know that SRJ is doing everything possible to maintain schedules, but also want to give you as much notice as possible that we may experience delays, due to COVID-19, that could affect schedules on our Projects. Our team is proactively working to attempt to mitigate such delays.
As always, we will continue to strive for a safe and successful completion of our Projects with you.
If SRJ can assist you in any way, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can reach us at 229-436-9877 (w), 229-881-2803 (m), or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Thank you for your continued support of SRJ. We will all emerge from this crisis stronger.
Sincerely,
SRJ Architects Inc.
Michael A. Johnson, AIA
We enjoy taking time to clean up Eugemar Park and the neighborhood around SRJ as often as we can. Because we take pride in our area, we often pick up trash & debris as we go about our daily work. We also do a deep-cleaning of litter and debris a couple of times a year to prevent the neighborhood from getting out of control and to maintain a healthy and safe space. We aim to raise environmental awareness in our area, as well as show great pride for our neighborhood. We are committed to building up our neighborhood any way we can and we believe that every bit helps.
