Symphony Place

Framework for Design Excellence Narrative

Design for Integration

Symphony Place is a project people will fight to preserve because it proves that reinvestment can outperform replacement. A mixed-use tower that once set the standard for sustainable design in Tennessee, HASTINGS carries this legacy into its next chapter by creating a variety of spaces that honor the original spirit of the building while enhancing this commitment to community. The design engages the senses on purpose, through hand-crafted joinery and herringbone floors underfoot, sweeping drapery and reeded glass at eye level, and a hospitality-forward layering of light and material that makes an office building feel like a place to linger rather than pass through. Its connection to place runs deeper than its Nashville address: the Cumberland Club borrows its name and character from the river that shapes the city, and an easy Southern architectural sensibility keeps the room from feeling imported or generic. The concept behind Symphony Place, then, is not a rebrand but a redefinition, one built on the premise that a building's history and its future are not at odds. This premise set the priorities for the principles at play: Wellness expressed through the fitness center with spa-like amenities, Craft expressed through finishes chosen to feel handmade rather than manufactured, and The Green, a one-acre multi-use green roof to encourage community through a variety of opportunities for gathering, fitness, or reflection.

 

 

Design for Well-Being

Symphony Place encourages a healthy lifestyle by making movement and time outdoors a built-in part of the workday rather than an afterthought. The seventh-floor fitness center puts a full workout facility steps from the desk, and The Green's acre of terrace garden turns a coffee break or a lunch meeting into a chance for fresh air, with pickleball courts and an outdoor grille giving people a reason to actually use the space rather than admire it from an interior window. Occupant comfort begins before anyone reaches their desk: the redesigned lobby resolves what was once a disjointed sequence, connecting the parking garage directly to the main entry, while layered lighting, warm materiality, and hospitality-forward furnishings soften the friction and sterility that so often define a large office lobby. On the seventh floor, the Cumberland Club offers something rarer than another meeting room: a space built for decompression rather than performance, where hand-crafted details, deep woods, and old-world finishes create the emotional register of a favorite local haunt, giving people somewhere to reset mentally during the workday. Connection to nature and place runs through every level of the project, from The Green's open-air terrace to the Cumberland Club's namesake river, so that being inside Symphony Place never fully disconnects someone from the city, or the landscape just outside its walls.

 

Design for Resources 

Material decisions at Symphony Place were weighed against durability, occupant health, and craft, not appearance alone, an approach that continues the building's original sustainability leadership as Tennessee's first LEED Gold-certified skyscraper rather than treating that legacy as history. Reinvesting in the existing building was itself a material decision and at the root of sustainability. Every new finish had to earn its place through longevity and craft rather than short-term trend. That commitment to craft runs through the supply chain as well, with the woodwork throughout the building produced locally by Cumberland Millwork, keeping both labor and sourcing rooted in Nashville rather than outsourced to a national supplier. Wherever possible, the team chose authentic materials over synthetic substitutes, real wood over veneer, real stone and plaster over laminate, returning to true and honest materials rather than finishes staged to look the part. That choice has a practical payoff as well as an ethical one: authentic materials age the way they always have, developing a patina and character over time rather than failing or discoloring the way synthetic finishes often do, so hand-crafted woodwork, wood-paneled conference rooms, herringbone floors, and warm brass and reeded glass details are all selected for the wear of a working building over decades rather than the life of a single lease cycle. The project celebrates local and regional craft most visibly in the Cumberland Club, where hand-crafted joinery and rich, dark woods root the space in a Southern architectural sensibility rather than an imported or generic finish palette, and even a subtle nod to Scottish tartans is filtered through that same regional lens rather than treated as an off-the-shelf import. Because Symphony Place is meant to anchor downtown Nashville for decades to come, material choices favored durability and easy maintenance over disposability: the tactile surfaces in the fitness center and the finishes throughout the lobby are meant to hold up to daily foot traffic while still feeling refined, so the building ages the way its original LEED Gold reputation did, as a long-term asset rather than a short-term renovation.

LEED/Green Certifications

Building is LEED Gold

Price/sq. ft. if provided

Withheld at Owner’s Request