YANMAR EVO//CENTER
Acworth, Georgia
YANMAR America’s EVO//CENTER offers an unparalleled hands-on educational experience in which students and visitors can work directly with Yanmar machines, in classrooms and in the field, to learn about food production and the environment. The 50,000 SF center offers training classrooms, an auditorium and an interactive museum with exhibits on historic practices and equipment relative to food production. The center also includes a “Working” Agricultural Training Field of approximately two acres, which allows YANMAR to grow local, seasonal crops on site.
The overall site layout and the design blend the Evo//Center with its rural Cherokee County surroundings. Yet special accent features, including the reflecting pond and the outdoor dining commons, draw inspiration from traditional Japanese garden elements, a nod to YANMAR’s native country. Breedlove Land Planning preserved a majority of the 52-acre site including preservation of 32 acres of existing wooded areas. Additionally, over 225 new caliper trees were planted within the developed areas of the site. The project also includes over 250,000 SF of custom native, low-maintenance “meadow” mix which speaks to the site’s rural surroundings. The meadow mix only requires mowing twice a year and does not require irrigation – a huge saving in water usage as compared to traditional turf grass.