WATERFRONT STATION

Location: Washington, D.C.
Project Size: 605,000 SF
LEED Gold Certified

Waterfront Station revitalizes Southwest DC by demolishing the mega-block Waterside Mall and replacing it with a pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use component. Whereas the vast size of the vacant mall created an unsafe community, the new project breaks down the scale by introducing two office buildings and almost 75,000 square feet of ground floor retail, including a major grocery. The master plan also reopens 4th Street, one of the few arteries that connects this quadrant of DC to the rest of the city, and creates a large public plaza adjacent to the Metro that spans the southern end of the site. The geometry of the office buildings responds to the newly opened street, which bends around an existing metro station. To further diminish the scale and maintain the broad vistas envisioned by L’Enfant’s historic city plan, portions of the eight-story buildings slide behind shorter facades. The buildings employ two distinct wall types to create facades of similar materials without presenting the same look to 4th Street. A unitized curtain wall with 30” louvers wraps the south and west facades to protect from the strongest sun rays, while a mix of ribbon windows and a yellow-orange blend of terra cotta complements along the east and north facades, striking a bold color in a predominantly precast area. Finally, green roofs completely cover both LEED Gold buildings.

Billy Askey—Designer (through previous association with Shalom Baranes Associates)
Photographs © Todd Mason, Halkin Photography, and Dan Stuver