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Writing Studio Front Desk; Image taken from GSU Writing Studio Website
he Georgia State University Writing Studio is located on the 24th floor the of the Park Place building, which was formerly known as the Sun Trust Building as it provided office space for the Sun Trust Banking Conglomerate before being leased to Georgia State. The building’s history as a bank provides a great deal of interest to the space inside of it as there are many incongruous (but therefor interesting) elements to the building. There is, for instance, an old bank vault in the basement of Park Place. I have been tempted on more than one occasion to tape a sign reading “problem student containment area” to its entrance. These incongruities create a depth to the experience of place in Park Place that you cannot obtain elsewhere on campus.
The thing that makes the Writing Studio my favorite location on GSU’s campus is the way that the repurposing of the former bank location has unearthed a new value in the location’s design. I do not explicitly know what the GSU Writing Studio location’s original purpose was but, given its size and relative elevation, I assume it must have served as a meeting room. The windows and the openness of the location, which might have once facilitated discussion between large numbers of people now facilitate one on one discussion and provide a positive setting that students can access to discuss methods of improving their writing with tutors. While there are many reasons why I like the Writing Studio, this repurposing and re-realization is the primary reason I like the Writing Studio as a location.