Great cities are defined by great places, and this week the nation’s capital marked the first day of construction on its newest, The Wharf, on Washington, D.C.’s Southwest Waterfront.
Perkins Eastman is serving as master planner, design architect, and architect of record for the public realm, infrastructure, and buildings in two of the initial parcels. Phase 1 alone comprises 24 acres of land, more than 50 acres of waterfront, and a building area of more than 1.9 million gsf. It is projected for completion in 2017.
The design vision for The Wharf is founded on three principles: reconnecting the city to its waterfront, providing D.C. residents with a world-class public destination for yearround use, and restoring Washington as a port city with a rich maritime history.
The Wharf will offer residents and visitors a series of grand and varied places while maintaining an intimate urban feel, replete with residential, commercial, hospitality, dining, and entertainment programs. This activated ground level will lend great variety to both imminent and future developments, becoming a prime destination for all.
Small lots are being constructed along the water’s edge in order to preserve panoramic views of the waterfront and Washington Channel from multiple vantage points.
“We’re proud to be helping return the city back to where it began, with mixed uses and high density all activating one of the world’s premier maritime destinations," said Stan Eckstut, FAIA, Principal of EE&K, a Perkins Eastman company, who is leading the project’s design team. "Designing The Wharf is about creating places where people want to live and visit, bringing the human scale to a large-scale development. It’s pedestrian-oriented, water-oriented, and transit-oriented development all in one.”
The Perkins Eastman team is leading design of the public realm, which includes the Wharf, District Pier, Transit Pier, Market Pier, Mews, and two levels of below-grade parking to accommodate more than 1,500 vehicles.
New construction along the water’s edge will include the Pierhouse Pavilion on the District Pier, the Dockmaster Building, and the Jetty Terminal.
The team is also designing the buildings for Parcels 2 and 3A, which includes two residential towers totaling 300 units, a 200,000 sf office building, a 150,000 sf music entertainment venue, 25,000 sf of ground floor retail space, and 15,000 sf of upper-floor entertainment space.
The Wharf is a $2 billion mixed-use waterfront development located on the historic Washington Channel. Situated along the District of Columbia’s Southwest Waterfront, The Wharf is adjacent to the National Mall with a development area that stretches across 27 acres of land and more than 50 acres of water from the Municipal Fish Market to Fort McNair.
When complete, it will feature approximately 3 million sf of new residential, office, hotel, retail, cultural, and public uses including waterfront parks, promenades, piers, and docks.
The Wharf is a large-scale waterfront development by Hoffman-Madison Waterfront as part of the District of Columbia’s Anacostia Waterfront Initiative. The Wharf development team is led by PN Hoffman and Madison Marquette and is comprised of ER Bacon Development, City Partners, Paramount Development and Triden Development. More information is available at www.wharfdc.com.
About Perkins Eastman
Perkins Eastman is among the top design and architecture firms in the world. With more than 750 employees in 13 locations around the globe, Perkins Eastman practices at every scale of the built environment. From niche buildings to complex projects that enrich whole communities, the firm’s portfolio reflects a dedication to progressive and inventive design that enhances the quality of the human experience.
The firm’s portfolio includes high-end residential, commercial, hotels, retail, office buildings, and corporate interiors, to schools, hospitals, museums, senior living, and public sector facilities. Perkins Eastman provides award-winning design through its offices in North America (New York, NY; Boston, MA; Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; Pittsburgh, PA; San Francisco, CA; Stamford, CT; Toronto, Canada; and Washington, DC); South America (Guayaquil, Ecuador); North Africa and Middle East (Dubai, UAE); and Asia (Mumbai, India, and Shanghai, China).
Related Stories
| Oct 9, 2012
Celebrating brick in architecture
The Brick Industry Association’s 2012 Brick in Architecture Awards put the spotlight on new projects that make creative use of one of humankind’s oldest and most beloved building materials.
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Special Recognition: Joplin Interim High School, Joplin, Mo.
At 5:41 p.m. CDT on Sunday, May 22, 2011, an EF5 tornado touched down in Joplin, Mo. In the next 31 minutes, the mile-wide, multiple-vortex tornado, with winds up to 250 mph, destroyed two thousand buildings, including Joplin High and nine other schools.
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Bronze Winner: DPR Construction, Phoenix Regional Office, Phoenix, Ariz.
Working with A/E firm SmithGroupJJR, DPR converted a vacant 16,533-sf one-time “adult-themed boutique” in the city’s reemerging Discovery Triangle into a LEED-NC Platinum office, one that is on target to be the first net-zero commercial office building in Arizona.
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Bronze Winner: Pomeroy Senior Apartments, Chicago, Ill.
The entire interior of the building was renovated, from the first floor lobby and common areas, to the rooftop spaces. The number of living units was reduced from 120 to 104 to allow for more space per unit and comply with current accessibility requirements.
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Bronze Winner: Walsh Group Training and Conference Center, Chicago, Ill.
With its Building Team partners—architect Solomon Cordwell Buenz, structural engineer CS Associates, and M/E engineer McGuire Engineers—Walsh Construction, acting as its own contractor, turned the former automobile showroom and paperboard package facility into a 93,000-sf showcase of sustainable design and construction.
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Silver Winner: 220 Water Street, Brooklyn, N.Y.
The recent rehabilitation of 220 Water Street transforms it from a vacant manufacturing facility to a 134-unit luxury apartment building in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood.
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Silver Winner: Residences at the John Marshall, Richmond, Va.
In April 2010, the Building Team of Rule Joy Trammell + Rubio, Stanley D. Lindsey & Associates, Leppard Johnson & Associates, and Choate Interior Construction restored the 16-story, 310,537-sf building into the Residences at the John Marshall, a new mixed-use facility offering apartments, street-level retail, a catering kitchen, and two restored ballrooms.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Awards Silver Winner: Allen Theatre at PlayhouseSquare, Cleveland, Ohio
The $30 million project resulted in three new theatres in the existing 81,500-sf space and a 44,000-sf contiguous addition: the Allen Theatre, the Second Stage, and the Helen Rosenfeld Lewis Bialosky Lab Theatre.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Awards Gold Winner: Wake Forest Biotech Place, Winston-Salem, N.C.
Reconstruction centered on Building 91.1, a historic (1937) five-story former machine shop, with its distinctive façade of glass blocks, many of which were damaged. The Building Team repointed, relocated, or replaced 65,869 glass blocks.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Awards Gold Winner: Rice Fergus Miller Office & Studio, Bremerton, Wash.
Rice Fergus Miller bought a vacant and derelict Sears Auto and converted the 30,000 gsf space into the most energy-efficient commercial building in the Pacific Northwest on a construction budget of around $100/sf.
