At the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Lucas Concrete helped transform a bold architectural vision into a national award-winning reality. This stunning water feature—characterized by its graceful serpentine flow and seamless integration into the landscape—is a testament to thoughtful engineering and design collaboration.

Originally intended to be cast in place, the Lucas team proposed a more sustainable and precise precast alternative. The decision not only protected the surrounding foliage and delicate garden environment but also allowed the design to be executed with exceptional quality and detail.

The result is a sculptural post-and-beam composition, where flume-like channels curve and sweep through the space, supported by a series of elegantly spaced concrete columns. Each element aligns perfectly, both structurally and visually, with the garden’s natural contours.

This project exemplifies the harmony possible between modern construction methods and environmentally sensitive sites—without compromise to creativity or durability.

From the earliest design phases, Lucas Concrete partnered with the architectural team to reimagine the construction methodology for this ambitious feature. Value engineering played a critical role in adapting the original cast-in-place vision to a more efficient and site-sensitive precast strategy.

The main structure operates on a post-and-beam system: vertical concrete columns serve as the posts, while the flowing concrete flume sections act as the beam. The innovation came in the forming process—every flume segment was designed with a single radius. By adjusting the length of these segments, the team could vary the chord length between columns and create both concave and convex curves along the serpentine layout. This eliminated the need for multiple form sets and drastically reduced fabrication costs and complexity.

Installation was equally precise. A full-size template of the channel layout was used onsite to geolocate column positions across the site’s varied elevations. Each column base and foundation footer had unique dimensions and elevations, carefully coordinated to align with the final flume layout.

To accommodate the dynamic behavior of a functioning water feature—along with seismic and wind considerations—each flume segment was rigidly connected on one end and given a slip connection on the other. This design allowed for shared dead-load bearing while enabling controlled movement between segments.

The use of precast components not only reduced construction time but preserved the surrounding plant life, making it a model project in sustainable and site-aware construction.