Platinum Visibility

by Jonathan McGaha | September 1, 2014 12:00 am

Located just blocks from the White House, 1000 Connecticut Avenue is a 385,000-square-foot Class-A office building with four levels of below-grade parking. Situated on a prominent corner in Washington D.C.’s financial and legal district, the building is certified LEED Core and Shell Platinum. Completed in 2012, Pei Cobb Freed[1], New York City, was the design architect with WGD[2], Washington, D.C., serving as the associate architect.

The 12-story, stainless steel and stone building has two distinct elements and offers notable views of the surrounding streets. The Connecticut Avenue façade features a saw-toothed design made of stainless steel and glass. The pleats, when viewed from the ground, show a geometric triangle pattern that reaches for the sky with a distinct vertical perspective. The K Street façade has three distinct projecting sections with skylights that relate to smaller adjacent buildings. Its granite and glass façade acts as a foil to 1700 K Street, which was built in 2005. The K Street façade also allows views of green space and natural light, and to differentiate the retail space from the office levels above, the building includes inversely beveled stainless steel liners on the pedestrian level with a combination of shadow relief and reflectivity. Additionally, the back of the building features ribbon windows and pre-cast panels.

“The buildings’ two principal façades respond individually to their settings while at the same time complementing each other in a variety of ways, convening to turn the corner in a distinctive and unexpected fashion,” says architect Roy Barris of Pei Cobb Freed. “The materials for the Connecticut Avenue street front create a skin that is folded into reflective pleats of glass and stainless steel. The K Street frontage is composed primarily of granite and glass as the foil to the stainless steel and glass façade on 1700 K Street opposite.”

“The Connecticut Avenue façade was shop-fabricated which created a superior level of detail and finish that otherwise would not have been attainable,” adds Eric Schlegel, architect at WDG. “The decision to use stainless steel came about because it is the most superior product for finish and durability. It exudes a character of quality.”

Almost all of the exterior panels feature Starlight 2J stainless steel from Contrarian Metal Resources[3], Allison Park, Pa. Starlight 2J is a reflective, uniformly textured finish, which was essential when working with engineering requirements that were within a millimeter. Stainless steel columns and window frames have either a brushed, textured or polished finish that is designed to respond to changes in sunlight throughout the day.

An entrance canopy is made of glass with a ceramic frit pattern, and the lobby has low-iron laminated glass with flat satin polished on the vertical edges. Inside the lobby, Contrarian supplied its metal panels in 16-gauge Starlight 5J stainless steel.

“The curtainwall went up well,” explains Claudio di Laurenzio of
Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope[4], Santa Monica, Calif. “We preassembled the frames in a shop and then put them up somewhat like Lego’s and were able to accomplish about 20 frames a day. The erection of the curtainwall went smoothly and we were able to close in on the building rather quickly. The top floors were more difficult because we used a vela crane and a monorail system with an aluminum eye-beam motor that traveled with a pulley. They had to be re-positioned as we progressed.”

To reduce the heat island effect, the building has a 16,000-square-foot vegetative green roof. It also features natural daylighting, increased ventilation, low-flow plumbing and construction waste management. The building also reduces energy use by more than 20 percent compared to a building built to code minimum, and its efficient MEP systems contribute to a total water savings of more than 40 percent. The building features three water-cooled frictionless chillers that use magnetic levitating bearings instead of oil, requiring less maintenance and generate less noise. Located one block away from two metro stations and three metro lines, the building has an on-site fitness center. Law firm Arent Fox is the primary tenant, with eight floors and more than 238,000 square feet, making up 70 percent of the building’s space.

 

1000 ConnecticutAve., Washington, D.C.
Award: 2012USGBC National Capital Region Chapter Project of the Year
Owner: 1000 Connecticut Associates
Design architect: Pei Cobb Freed[1], New York City
Associate architect: WGD[2], Washington, D.C.
General contractor: Clark Construction Group[5], Bethesda, Md.
Curtainwall/architectural glass: Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope[4], Santa Monica, Calif.
Stainless steel: Contrarian Metal Resources[3], Allison Park, Pa.,

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/articles/platinum-visibility/

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