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Project: Hyde-Addison Elementary School,
3219 O Street, NW, Washington, DC
Architect: Shinberg.Levinas Architects Inc.
Landscape Architect: Bradley Site Design
Lighting Designer: D. Gilmore Lighting
Structural Engineer: Silman
MEP Engineer: Setty & Associates
Civil Engineer: AMT
General Contractor: MCN Build

The addition is nestled between the historic Addison (left background) All photos © Alan Karchmer
and Hyde (right) school buildings.

Seen from O Street, the richly colored terra cotta elements of the addition complement the brick of the historic school buildings and perimeter fence posts.

The new building’s location between the two While the two existing buildings are traditional,
older structures might seem obvious or inevitable in red-brick structures, their brick tones aren’t the same,
retrospect, but it didn’t have to be that way—the site and their window patterns and other exterior design
is large enough that the new building could have been details differ. For Shinberg.Levinas, this mismatched
placed elsewhere, away from the two historic buildings. situation, far from being a problem, made it possible
Putting it between the Addison and Hyde buildings, for the new building to employ its own version of a
however, preserved a large outdoor play area on the red-toned masonry exterior, creating a three-building
remainder of the site, and allowed the new building to medley of color, texture, and window patterns. The
be connected to both older structures, so that students, new building is thus clad not in horizontally oriented
staff, and visitors could move easily through an rows of bricks, like the two older structures, but in
integrated complex. vertically oriented terra cotta tiles and baguettes—the

SMART DESIGN IS ELEMENTARY 31