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dwellers within. The north façade, facing P Street, features two-story town-
buildings, the north elevation is organized in a tartan grid pattern, with a
house units accessed via individual stairs off the sidewalk. Echoing its sister
brick frame superstructure and glass and metal infill.
With monthly rents ranging from $2,000 to $9,000, high-end finishes
throughout, and luxury rooftop amenities, 880 P Street is squarely aimed at
a high-income demographic. Considered in totality, however, the
CityMarket development offers much-needed retail to both old-timers and
new arrivals in the surrounding community, increases neighborhood connectiv-
ity via the reopened 8th Street, and accomplishes the neat trick of fitting in
while standing out.
This project was previously featured in the Summer 2018 issue of
ARCHITECTUREDC.
Roof terrace of 880 O Street, NW. Photo © Maxwell MacKenzie
Architectural Photographer
Merit Award in Architecture

West End-Square 50
Washington, DC

TEN Arquitectos & WDG Architecture
Consulting Architects for Fire Station:LeMay Erickson Willcox Architects
Landscape Architects: Oehme, van Sweden|OvS (initial); Wiles
Mensch Corporation
Interior Designers: TEN Arquitectos; WDG Interior Architecture M Street façade of Square 50. Interior of squash facility.
Structural Engineers: Tadjer-Cohen-Edelson Associates Photo © Alan Karchmer Photo © Alan Karchmer
MEP/Security/Telecom/AV/LEED Consultants: Cosentini Associates
Civil Engineers: Wiles Mensch Corporation
Curtain Wall/Waterproofing Consultants: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger
Acoustical Consultants: Polysonics
General Contractor: Clark Construction Group

Where in Washington can you find a fire station, affordable housing, and a
squash club—all in one building? This most unlikely mashup of programs
shouldn’t work, but the risk-taking design of the project known as West
End-Square 50 pulls it off.
Developed by EastBanc in a public-private partnership with the District
of Columbia, the nine-story building at the corner of 23rd and M streets, NW,
boldly expresses its unique tripartite program in the form of three shifting
and stacked volumes outfitted in contrasting materials and colors. A breath
of fresh air in a neighborhood dominated by understated transitional and
postmodern architectural styles, Square 50 is a collaboration between design
architect TEN Arquitectos and executive architect WDG Architecture.
The replacement neighborhood fire station at street level is clad in (you
guessed it) fire-engine red perforated-metal panels and curtain wall. Above
the fire station, a two-story volume set back from the property line houses a
20,000-square-foot squash facility with eight regulation courts. The squash
club’s supersized picture window, framed in gray metal cladding, daylights
the circulation and amenity spaces and provides expansive views up and
down M Street.
In contrast with the broad expanses of metal panel and glass below, the
six-story multifamily housing component topping the building is wrapped in
fiber-cement panels with punched window openings. With 55 apartments
designated for households earning up to either 60% or 30% of the area median
income—currently about $110,000 for a family of four—along with six market-
rate units, Square 50 brings much-needed affordable housing to a precinct
of the city better known for upscale hotels and pricey condominiums.
This project was previously featured in the Fall 2018 issue
Oblique view of Square 50. Photo © Alan Karchmer
of ARCHITECTUREDC.
MULTI-FAMILY AFFAIR 53