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Being called two-faced is usually an insult, but for the
new office building at 600 Massachusetts Avenue, NW,
it’s a point of pride.
The 11-story, 400,000-square-foot structure, designed
by CORE architecture + design, occupies a parcel near
Mount Vernon Square that was assembled over time by
the project’s developer, Kingdon Gould III. The site is
irregularly shaped and faces distinct architectural contexts
on its opposing Massachusetts Avenue and I Street sides,
creating a complex architectural challenge. CORE
responded with a design whose two principal facades,
like non-identical siblings, present different but related
faces to the public.
“With the vastly different building requirements that
govern the Massachusetts Avenue and historic I Street
sides of this building, we purposefully developed a
design that has a Janus-like quality to it,” said Guy
Martin, AIA, a principal at CORE.
On the building’s north side, where it forms part of
a fairly monumental stretch of Massachusetts Avenue, the
structure is tall, glassy, and somewhat monolithic, like the
new office building across the street at 601 Massachusetts
Avenue, NW, and the next building beyond that, at 655 K
Street, NW. Together, the three buildings form a sequence
that seemingly takes its cue from the glass-clad front of the
Washington Convention Center, expressing a modernist
style along the east side of the square that plays off the
classical style of the Carnegie Library building at the
square’s center and the area’s sinuously-curved brick-clad
residential buildings designed by Phil Esocoff, FAIA, that
have been noted in previous issues of this magazine (see
the Spring 2012 issue of ARCHITECTUREDC).
On its south side, in contrast, 600 Massachusetts
responds to a block of I Street characterized by smaller
masonry-clad structures, including the Sixth & I Historic
Synagogue. Here, the building’s design shifts to a terraced
assemblage of brick- and glass-clad volumes that frames
a group of preserved historic brick structures, including
two that were moved to that location in part to give the
group more of a critical mass. “The goal was to match the
brick masonry material of the older buildings on I Street,
while differentiating the new building,” Martin said.
The shallow pool running along the base of the In addition to mediating between the low height of
Massachusetts Avenue façade. the older existing structures and the new building’s own
higher floors, the cascading terraces create extensive
landscaped outdoor space for tenants. “There are no
Project: 600 Massachusetts Avenue, NW,
other office buildings in Washington with the amount
Washington, DC
and quality of green space that 600 Mass has,” said Ron
Architects: CORE Ngiam, AIA, a senior designer at CORE. “When spring
Landscape Architects: GGN growth begins, the outdoor areas, especially the rooftop
Lighting Designers: George Sexton Associates terrace, will be spectacular.” The terrace on the 10th floor
Structural Engineers: SK&A Structural Engineers includes a bocce ball court.
MEP Engineers: Girard Engineering
Civil Engineers: Wiles Mensch Corporation The building tapers on its east end to present a narrow
LEED Consultants: Sustainable Design Consulting third façade on 6th Street, NW. If the two principal façades
Acoustics Consultants: Polysonics are the building’s well-mannered siblings, this third façade,
Elevator Consultants: VDA with a pair of angle-edged glass surfaces suggesting a
Code Compliance Consultants: JENSEN HUGHES rocky cliff or an iceberg, might be considered the wild child.
Contractor: Clark Construction Group
The glass edges extend slightly beyond the enclosed part
of the building, into the open air, allowing those window
acKenzie EVERY STORY HAS TWO SIDES 21
