Crafting a welcoming space through natural materials at 2100 Pennsylvania Avenue

Marble melds nature, architecture, and sculpture together, elevating placemaking to its highest levels at 2100 Pennsylvania Avenue, a LEED Gold, mixed-use development on the northeast corner of George Washington University (GWU) campus.

The design embraces the site’s challenging geometry, carefully establishing uplifting public space within encircling v-plan floor plates. The inviting 3-story entrance lobby rises into a grand 10-story atrium becoming a “forest” sanctuary of daylit wood and stone, animating Washington DC’s prominent corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 21st Street – visible over a mile away – with natural materials and forms. The playful and signature undulations of the building – emulating the iconic streamlined Flatiron Building and Barcelona’s Casa Mila – culminate in the public interior.

2100 Pennsylvania Avenue showcases how to conceive and implement natural stone to the highest levels of craft today, elevating architecture to new levels of uplifting placemaking.

Craig Copeland, the project’s Partner-in-Charge, applied his experience as an accomplished monumental stone sculptor to shape the grand interiors with a bold winding marble stair from the street level lobby up 12 feet into the atrium amenities level. Stone procurement for 2100 Penn Ave started with exploring an array of medium to dark-colored stones to complement the brighter white oak and etched glass walls, with deeper tones and colors emulating a riverbed. For the exterior storefronts and entry paving, the team selected flamed Zimbabwe Black granite. Following the visit to marble quarries in central Turkey, Copeland suggested Turkish Dark Olive marble to create the rich pattern of varied stone textures for the balance and majority of stone areas: the public lobby, grand stair, atrium, all public bathrooms, elevator cabs and lobbies. 

After the quarry visits, Copeland made a preliminary review of blocks and associated slabs at the fabrication plant in Bilecik, Turkey to confirm the acceptable ranges of needed material. Within a few months, representatives of the project team, including the owner, architect, installer, and GC convened at the Bilecik fabrication plant, reviewing, and approving the balance of blocks, slabs, paving finish strategy, future dry-lay review process (which eventually totaled 5 visits – 2 while under strict COVID restrictions), packing sequence and shipping.  

The 100% dry-lay reviews helped assure a smooth installation, but there were still issues of unavoidable cupping. The most challenging parts to finish were the ramp and grand stair walls. In select areas, the installer had to grind and refinish the leather surface to match throughout. This proceeded after a careful review of additional mockups and input from the installers, architects, and owners. 

In the atrium, the team incorporated innovative building strategies garnered during bidding and took extra measures to design the surrounding demising walls to function as complete weather barriers during construction. This relieved calendar bottlenecks by allowing interior fit-outs to start several months ahead of schedule, before enclosing the atrium with its skylight and west wall.   

The atrium rises eleven stories tall culminating with a skylit ceiling that is animated with perforated aluminum baffles. The baffles temper and shape daylight like a canopy of overhead branches. 

The lobby walls are clad in sustainably sourced wood veneer from an FSC-certified supplier and include an integrated acoustical layer to improve noise absorption. The shaping of biophilic forms and the use of natural materials was essential to the interior design, fostering a connection to nature, promoting wellness, and ensuring lasting durability within the heart of 2100 Pennsylvania Ave.