Page 70 - ArchDC_Spring 2020

Lower wing.

Roof terrace.
The site is positioned at the northwestern side of an urban of high modernism and the more layered compositions of the
renewal superblock that is mostly occupied by Waterside Towers, Wharf, with a bit of the angularity of Arena Stage.
a classic modernist residential design with three, nine-story Hoffman & Associates also envisioned the building’s
towers and a two-story wing around a central courtyard. At programming as something in between, and complementing,
the southeast side of the block is the Arena Stage, which has both the Wharf and the Waterside Towers. Unlike the Wharf,
two urban renewal-era theaters (the Fischlander and Kreeger) which draws a conventional mix of young professionals and
completely enveloped by the dramatic Mead Center of 2010 empty-nesters as the central pool of tenants, the Banks is aimed
by Bing Thom Architects (featured in the Spring 2011 issue of at “stroller families,” which STUDIOS principal in charge Brian
ARCHITECTUREDC magazine). Pilot, AIA, describes as “[y]oung couples just starting their
STUDIOS felt that the new apartment building should families who don’t want to move out of the city but need a little
reflect this diverse context—that it should be a bridge between more space and more targeted amenities.” Unlike the Wharf,
the “classic” high modernism of the Southwest urban renewal with its wide variety of restaurants, bars, entertainment venues,
area and the more varied contemporary architecture of the and quotidian retail, the Banks’ street-level space is devoted to
Wharf, with a little of the drama of the Arena Stage thrown in a child care center. There are typical amenities such as a fitness
for good measure. Toward that end, the Banks’ façades draw center, lobby, and club room with roof deck, but they are modest
a little from each: they are compositionally simple, like the compared to those in most new DC residential buildings: the
buildings of Waterside Towers, but with some sharper angles focus here is on elbow room within the apartments and a
reminiscent of Arena Stage and a few irregularities evoking the landscaped playground shared by the child care center and the
Wharf’s self-consciously picturesque façades. The massing is building’s tenants.
similarly transitional between the monumental rectilinearity
68 BUILDING CONNECTIONS