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Project: West End Neighborhood Library,
2301 L Street, NW, Washington, DC
Interior Architects: CORE architecture + design
Design Architects for Base Building: TEN Arquitectos
Architects of Record for Base Building: WDG Architecture
Lighting Designers: George Sexton Associates
Landscape Architects: Oehme, van Sweden | OvS
Structural Engineers: Tadjer-Cohen-Edelson Associates
MEP Engineers/LEED Consultants: Cosentini Consulting Engineers library. Recognizing the inherent grandeur of this forest of
Code Compliance Consultants: Core Engineers Consulting Group columns, space-hogging though they may be, CORE instead
Contractor: Clark Construction
Main reading room of the West End Library. All photos © Ron Ngiam
Exterior of the West End Library as seen from L Street, NW.
Over the past decade, the DC Public Library (DCPL) has
renovated or replaced nearly all of its branches, and attracted
international attention in doing so. Many of these projects have
won design awards and have been featured in professional journals
and the general press. Several of these projects have been covered
in past issues of ARCHITECTUREDC. The initiative has also
dramatically improved users’ perceptions of the library system.
The new West End Neighborhood Library continues this
recent tradition of high-quality facilities. It replaces an outdated
freestanding structure that easily could have been mistaken for
a generic medical office building. By contrast, the branch now
occupies part of a striking new mixed-use building designed by
Mexico City-based TEN Arquitectos, with the local firm of WDG
as architects of record. The library itself was designed by DC-
based CORE architecture + design, which previously oversaw
the renovation and addition to the Mt. Pleasant Neighborhood
Library as well as two interim library spaces.
The renovation of the West End branch was the last such
project begun under the leadership of Ginnie Cooper, DCPL’s
former chief librarian, who retired in 2013. She received the
national AIA’s Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture
and AIA|DC’s Glenn Brown Award, which honors people who
have raised public awareness of architecture and improved the
quality of life in DC.
One of the challenges facing the team from CORE was the
building’s unusual structural system, which includes clusters of
sharply angled concrete columns in ground floor spaces.
Reminiscent of the trunks of live oaks or other hefty trees, the
clumped columns unquestionably diminished the usable floor
space in these areas. While the library board expressed strong
concerns about these impediments to efficient layout, CORE
principal Dale A. Stewart, AIA, and senior interior designer
Daniel C. Chapman, NCIDQ, LEED AP, decided to turn them
to advantage.
TEN’s original plans for the library had called for situating
the book stacks amid the row of funky columns running parallel
to the L Street façade, a move that not only would have muddled
the architectural impression of the double-height space, but also
would have blocked views from the adjacent sidewalk into the
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