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fixtures that we are used to seeing in our market-rate beams with metal panels and used the beams to provide
projects. The attention to detail for the units, as well as the the screening elements for the mechanical units on the roof.”
skin of the building, far exceeds comparable affordable At the start of the design effort, Stadler said, “we all
developments.” assumed the acoustic challenges would be generated
The Square 50 project’s site posed a challenge from the noise of fire trucks’ sirens, and that the residents
involving a neighboring building. “Because the adjacent above would need to be protected from this noise. We
building to the north had window openings on the soon realized, through working with the District’s Fire
property line, [the design for] Square 50 stepped the and Emergency Medical Services department, that the
residential box [back from] the property line to allow the most critical sound-design challenges were from the squash
adjacent property to maintain most of the openings on courts that would be located above the fire station’s second
their south façade,” said Stadler. floor, where the firemen’s sleeping quarters were located.
“The structural solution that allowed the residential The impact of the squash balls and athletes pounding on the
box to cantilever [over the lower part of the building],” floor became a significant acoustical design challenge.”
he added, “was to hang this piece from four concrete Accordingly, “to keep the squash court sounds from
beams, each five feet deep and 30 feet long. Because the disturbing the fire fighters below and the apartment
residential block’s parapet was designed to the height residents above, the building has a double concrete slab
limit, the beams had to project above the roof” so that they system with layers of sound insulation in between to form
wouldn’t count against the height limit, which was a distinct separation between the building functions,” he
measured from the roof’s structural slab. “We clad the said. In addition, “to keep the sound of the fire station’s

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