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Typical residential unit, with new built-in storage.

housing for fellows. The building was renamed La Although those structural deficiencies would
Quercia (“The Oak” in Italian), reflecting its role as a require substantial demolition and replacement, the
branch facility of the main campus. architects decided that the basic plan of the building
By 2010, the La Quercia building, which was built was still viable. Individual unit interiors were gutted
in 1922 and had received only minor renovations and modernized, and thoughtfully designed built-in
over the ensuing decades, was due for a major storage was added to make up for the lack of closet
overhaul. To accommodate fellows in the meantime, space. In response to the client’s request for new
Dumbarton Oaks bought another building at the common areas, the architects eliminated two “very
corner of Wisconsin Avenue and R Street, NW, and uncomfortable” units on the lower level and converted
commissioned Cunningham | Quill Architects the space into a lounge, laundry room, bicycle room,
to oversee the renovation of the structure. After and general storage room.
Fellowship House, as the new building was called, The interiors of the 15 living units, lounge, and
opened in 2014, the same firm was hired to lead the circulation areas reflect what might be described as a
renovation of La Quercia into a modern residence for “warm modernist” aesthetic. In the units, oak millwork
fellows, Harvard interns, and staff. complements the existing oak flooring, much of which
The existing building was cramped, mechanically was salvaged, sanded, and re-stained. In the corridors,
outdated, and infused with a “Grandma’s attic” smell, oak doors and surrounds, along with simple blocks
according to David R. Coxson, AIA, an associate of color in the carpeting, announce the entrances to
at Cunningham | Quill. Worse, once demolition individual units. New floor and wall tiles throughout
began, the design team discovered that the building’s are of bluestone and porcelain. Furnishings in the
structure was in shockingly poor condition, with living units, which range from roughly 400 to 685
termite and water damage evident in floor joists and square feet, are simple, yet manage to seem far superior
around the foundation walls. “The majority of the to their equivalents in typical college dorm rooms. The
floors sloped in such a dramatic way,” said Coxson, furniture in the lounge is decidedly elegant, evoking a
“that you [felt] like you were climbing uphill to get high-end office or hotel reception area.
from one end of the unit to the other. In addition to the Perhaps the most significant changes to the
structure, the existing plaster walls and ceilings were building involved the replacement of all mechanical,
cracked and separating from the lath, and ultimately electrical, and plumbing systems. “We learned during
very difficult to salvage.” the feasibility study for this project that the energy

72 ROOM(S) TO THINK