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Bryant Street

Washington, DC

Bryant Street, a mixed-use, LEED Certified, transit oriented development adjacent to the Rhode Island Metro Station. Phase I will feature two wood frame buildings with 334 multifamily units, a 9-screen cinema, and 38,482 sf of ancillary ground floor retail. In addition, Phase I includes a 154-unit building located within the master planned Bryant Street development. The surrounding area is a mix of townhomes and single family houses to the west, high rise multifamily to the north, and commercial and industrial to the south and east. The new buildings would pay homage to the industrial era that helped shape this neighborhood while generating an architectural vernacular that’s rooted in the memory of the neighborhood.

Building 1A is composed by the interactions of three parts; a body, the structure and a hinge element. The body, a sequence of heavy dark masonry piers with a warehouse feel, marches along the train tracks as you would expect, but suddenly it bends into the site creating a funnel that draws you in to the site from metro as well as attention as you pass by the trail. The masonry body, which mitigates the sound of the adjacent train tracks, anchors the building to the ground and creates a scalable relationship with pedestrians. The structure is characterized as “the bare bones” of the building. And finally, “the hinge element” that it is purposely located at the bend of the building is raised from the ground to provide transparency for the public functions of the building as well as an announcer of the main entrance and beacon like expression in the roof line.

The geometry of Building 1B is the result of the site conditions where this building is being placed. The building site is bounded by Rhode Island Avenue, the main road entrance, the central open space and the trail. The building bends and rotates to define the edge of the public domain and at the same time create opportunities to articulate the facade. As we approach the site from Rhode Island Avenue the building presents a stone base that reminds of the architecture of the “train related” structures of another era, but with a contemporary combination of glass and metal. With simple lines, dark metal frame-like “superstructures” with embedded windows, shape those corners buildings.

Expertise
Architecture

Status
Completed August 2021

Program
1,550,000 SF Residential
272,000 SF Retail

Sustainability
Targeting LEED Gold