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The pier as seen from above, with its wavy Photo © Nic Lehoux
roof and steel arches supporting swings.

View of the pier with the floating portion at far left, the stationary section to its right, and the curving, sloped surface between them. Photo © Nic Lehoux

central lawn, with mounds of ornamental plantings and pockets the Washington Monument appearing unexpectedly over the
for bioretention in the leftover spaces, creating rolls in the Case Bridge.
ground plane. Along the length of the pier, park benches, in the form of
At the portion of the project within the waterfront minimalist wood-plank boxes, alternate with swings (wide
promenade—between the pier and the park—a series of arching enough for three abreast) hung from a series of steel-pipe arches.
fountains restates the wave motif again. Adjacent is a large Minimalist light pylons recall the masts of sailboats. The pièce
shade structure with a rolling wave roof. From this vantage de résistance, however, is the 14-foot-tall fire sculpture at the
point, the visitor overlooks the water directly, including a end of the pier. Conceived as a “community campfire,” it has
half-dozen oval floating islands of flowering plants in the come to be called “the Torch.” Metal bars—abstractions of wood
foreground. Anchored to the bottom so they won’t float away, kindling leaned together—form an irregular tower shape that
the floating islands have perennial plants rooted through fabric separates the actual flames from visitors.
membranes. There is no soil—the roots dangle several feet Vergason traditionally does hand-sketching to develop
down into the water. The roots serve as habitat for fish and other design ideas. When the Wharf project started, the firm had just
aquatic organisms, and the plants act “like a pollution vacuum,” purchased software that provided parametric visualization
said Vergason, sucking up excess nutrients and stabilizing capabilities. “Parametrics” is a description of architectural or
floating solids. structural elements that feature both repetition and continuous
The rolling wave motif’s most architecturally exciting shifting of shape, bearing, and/or dimension. The resulting
manifestation is at the pier. The entire pier curves like a very forms can be irregular curves (for example, the curlicues of
shallow “C” in plan, but it consists of two parts. Along the Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles) or
southeastern side is the kayak center and launch, which required regular curves (as in Foster + Partners’ glass roof over the
a floating pier so that it is always very close to water level. Along courtyard of the British Museum). A non-curvilinear example
the northwestern side is the leisure pier, which had to be fixed would be the ever-shifting sawtooth panels of DC’s new
in place and thus needed to be elevated substantially above the Midtown Center (Fannie Mae headquarters), by SHoP Architects
typical water level. At the land end of the pier, the two elements with WDG Architecture. Although it is possible to create many
are joined, sloping downward a bit to an inflection point, from of these geometries without computer software, the computer
which the kayak pier continues downward and transitions to extends those possibilities and allows much easier visualization.
floating, and the recreation pier rises. A sloped surface connects It also translates the geometries into data points for the
the two prongs, growing steeper as the piers diverge. individual parts, facilitating fabrication and construction.
The upper pier runs over 400 feet out to a “belvedere” which Parametric software is widely used in current-day
plays a neat trick on visitors: Heading out, one is drawn by longer architecture, but rarely are the results simpler or purer than at
views down the river and across to East Potomac Park (which the 7th Street Pier, where the two prongs of the pier diverge at
culminates at Hains Point). Upon arrival at the terminus, one a constant rate, creating a modular yet ever-changing angled
turns around and discovers that the more captivating view is connector wall between them. Vergason found it to be a
back toward the Wharf: the line of buildings, the people, boats “refreshing” supplement to hand drawing, perfectly suited to
coming in and out of docks, and so forth, with the upper half of bringing the rolling wave leitmotif of the pier to life.

44 ROLLIN’ ON THE RIVER