This iconic Atlanta landmark sits on a lush, 20-acre setting it shares with the Georgia Aquarium and the Center for Civil and Human Rights, just across from Centennial Olympic Park. Designed as a free-flowing attraction, its highly interactive exhibits present the history, memorabilia, and global impact of the Coca-Cola brand and its 500 sparkling and still beverages.

More than a million people visit the World of Coca-Cola each year. The building’s iconic design was challenging to deliver, particularly the Vault of the Secret Formula, the newest attraction built 20 feet beneath the existing museum while it remained open to the public.

The shimmering, stainless steel mesh pinned to the façade – sandblasted with the trademark Coca-Cola script – gives the building its icy appearance. Guests enter through the 90-foot, “ice”-block tower that holds a 27-ft-tall replica of the Coca-Cola bottle in its 3D glass frame. This signature bottle shape is illuminated at night and appears to float in the ice. Once inside, visitors move into the 70-ft-tall curved glass atrium known as “The Hub.” From this central meeting space guests can pass in and out of the exhibits and theaters that surround it, on each of the building’s three levels.

As Engineer of Record, SYKES worked with a large multidisciplinary design team to orchestrate the complex project for the grand re-opening in 2007. (The original museum opened on a different site in 1990.) Five years later, SYKES was again tapped to create the museum’s newest attraction, an underground vault for safekeeping the Coca-Cola “secret formula.” Exceptionally challenging, this basement addition required 20 feet of excavation and an elaborate system of underpinning to support and secure the existing, fully operating floors just above the construction area.