Page 86 - Winter_2018

ArchDC Winter 2018.qxp_Winter 2018 11/27/18 9:42 AM Page 84

Modern Addition
as seen from the patio.

Fine Points
Fine Points

Jurors Recognize

Two Projects

for Design Details

by Deane Madsen, Assoc. AIA Renovated interior. Photos © Gordon Beall

Washingtonian Merit Award Faced with the challenge of supporting an upper-level bedroom
for Steel and Glass Detail and terrace while excavating out the existing family room and
kitchen, partner Wouter Boer, AIA, recalls looking at the details of
Modern Addition Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House: “We were using that
Washington, DC for inspiration on how to detail the eave in the steel connections,”
Boer said. The use of cut pieces of steel shapes to make a profile,
Jones & Boer Architects in lieu of traditional aluminum flashing, results in a crisp eave
overhang, which also conceals integrated lighting and shades glazing
Interior Designer: Jennifer Tonkel
from direct solar exposure. Six black-painted, cylindrical steel tube
Structural Engineers: Ehlert Bryan, Inc.
columns of roughly 1-1/4-inch diameter support a steel C-channel,
General Contractor: Mauck Zantzinger & Associates Inc.
and are narrow enough to disappear behind the wood framing of
the doors and windows facing the garden. Where enclosed spaces
The leafy Northwest DC neighborhood of Wesley Heights boasts
once defined each zone according to function, the firm reduced
some elegant Tudor Revival houses, but a family recently
walls to a pair of columns, allowing a contemporary kitchen to
transplanted from New York was looking for a glassier environment
flow into the glazed family room.
that would allow them to take advantage of proximity to nature
Out in the patio, the distinction between old and new is
beyond their herringbone brick walls. The Dupont Circle-based
much more apparent. “The little columns help make it look like
firm of Jones & Boer Architects transformed an existing, but
a little pavilion,” Boer said. “You either take the approach of a
dilapidated, late-1970s addition into a Miesian modern box that
seamless addition, or that it’s going to be very different so you
amplifies the surroundings by minimizing its own presence.
get a good juxtaposition.”
84 FINE POINTS