Fresh Hot Architecture

Current plans for the Old Convention Center site [Hines and Archstone] include a 400-room hotel, more than 350,000 sqft of retail, ~670 residential units (20% affordable housing), 465,000 sqft of office space, a plaza area, and a half-acre public park. //oldconventioncenter.com.

However, with the DC height restriction, there is little room to do this without closing off almost the entire site. While project advocates claim the design stresses visual connections through the site and to its surroundings, cramming programmatic requirements into such a short space create nothing but the forboding blocky structures D.C. is all too familiar with. From afar, the building would not be recognizable, and up close, the entrance would be nothing more than a small void between rectangular prisms. There is no obvious way to pull people into the site when one is forced to fill all space in building from top to bottom.

Putting a skyscraper on the site would allow one to achieve both programmatic goals while creating these visual connections. Things to stress and/or think about:

• voided space at ground level: how to draw people in, how to maintain definition of edges while achieving permability
• visual connection through the site: instead of a void in-between buildings, build on the line of sight
• bridging to other areas of pedestrian access; i.e. Gallery Place and the Verizon Center
• creating/keeping marsh land and habitats for birds
• levels of transparency to acknowledge building heights, sun angles
• reflection/echo of Museum of Natural History (on axis with site) through arched forms?

_initial thought for permeable accentuation of edges; transparency decreases as towers grow up, wrapper element defines site and encircles buildings