Project Overview

The ATA International, Inc. World Headquarters, founded in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1977, is the center for martial arts training world wide. The three story office facility highlights Asian design influences accompanied with Arkansas materials. The facility is designed around the legacy of Eternal Grand Master H.U. Lee, the founder, who was raised in South Korea and came to the U.S. in 1962. The museum, which tells the story of martial arts, contains memorabilia from each era as you progress through the space. Starting in pre-1960's and following up through the 90's and today. The museum honors EGM H.U. Lee with a large water feature at the front façade
that symbolizes the transfer of knowledge and training that EGM started and passed on to masters and students over the years. This knowledge-giving water that flows from inside the museum's Eternal Grand Master's pool, to outside and down to the masters' pool and finally down to the students' pool, reveals the responsibility of the masters to be continually pouring knowledge into the students and ever-learning and training in the art of Songahm Taekwondo.

The building is divided into 3 main programmatic elements; the 33,800sf operations office, which is located on 3 floors of the main office tower, the 5,000sf martial arts museum located on the first floor and the 6,500sf training center located at the southern end.