Page 59 - Fall_2017

ArchDC Fall 2017.qxp_Fall 2017 8/10/17 1:16 PM Page 57

Main reception area of the fourth floor events space.

The slogan of the Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” Project: Washington Post,
was adopted in March of this year, some time after the Post moved
Washington, DC
into six floors of One Franklin Square, at 1301 K Street, NW. It is
generally assumed that the slogan is a response to political Architects: Gensler
conditions in Washington and elsewhere. But one wonders if the Structural Engineers: SK&A Associates
new offices might have influenced—perhaps subliminally—the MEP Engineers: WSP USA
Audiovisual/IT Consultants: CMS Innovative Consultants
choice of the slogan, because their wonderful brightness is such
Fire/Life Safety Consultants: Aon Fire Protection Engineering Corporation
a contrast to the dingy spaces the Post had occupied for so long Food Service Consultants: Woodburn & Associates, Inc.
on 15th Street, NW. Broadcast Consultants: Severn
Most prosaically, the light comes from fluorescent and LED Contractor: rand* construction corporation
strips, employed in crisp corporate fashion. More light (this time
with a bluish tinge) comes from hundreds of television screens, One direct application of Ryan’s goals is the location of three
distributed throughout the facility, showing a mix of current Post “open set positions.” These spaces are essentially just open areas,
online stories, print edition pages, and outside media sources. with a little extra lighting, sited within the expanse of open-office
Sunlight comes from windows that ring the spaces. Moreover, the workstations on the two newsroom floors. They serve as unenclosed,
Post being a 24/7 operation, the light goes outward, most noticeably short-notice television recording studios for Post reporters to
at night in the winter, when the Post’s bright windows, viewed videotape breaking news reports for the website or to participate
from Franklin Square, advertise a hive of activity when most K remotely in television talk shows. The locations of the “open set
Street offices are dark. positions” were carefully chosen, and the camera views designed,
This sense of light, however, is not merely measured in to show an apparently endless newsroom, with scores of reporters
lumens. “[Post CEO] Fred Ryan said one hundred times, ‘We want at work, a dozen TV screens flickering the latest news, and of course
an energized newsroom, and we want it to feel like the largest the Post’s logotype discreetly (but unmistakably) looming in the
newsroom in the world,’” said John McKinnon, IIDA, LEED AP, a background. It’s all carefully composed, to be sure, but in no way
senior associate at Gensler and the design director for the three- artificial: it really is the newsroom, and those really are Post employees
year project. The very size and energetic busy-ness of the Post scurrying around. The energy flows both ways: viewers see an
seem to create their own light.

DEMOCRACY LIVES IN LIGHT 57