1812 North Moore Elevates the Market in Arlington with Spectacular Entrances
In the world of real estate, everyone knows location is everything. Located at the center of the Orange/Silver/Blue Metro lines, four bridges to Washington D.C., and five highways between Virginia and Maryland, 1812 North Moore Street in Arlington, Virginia is also just minutes away from Reagan National Airport (DCA), Dulles International Airport (IAD), the Union Station transit hub, and an easy walk/bike/paddle from all over the DC Metro area and surrounding suburbs. This new thirty-story skyscraper with a height of 385 feet is currently the tallest building in the Washington Metropolitan Region, offering many unobstructed views into Georgetown, the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, the National Mall, and the Potomac River basin. The 580,000 square foot office building is partially constructed over an existing electrical substation, with a “thru-block” lobby hemmed in by the power substation and metro station. For busy commuters, this is an ideal situation.
The building was originally proposed in 2005 with 39 floors and a height of 484 feet and a tapering design resembling Pelli’s Atago Green Hills Mori Tower in Tokyo. The design was eventually shortened and simplified to its current design, which takes cues from the pyramid at the top of 3100 Clarendon Blvd in the nearby Clarendon neighborhood. Architect Davis Carter Scott, Ltd. (DCS) was selected for the design of the 1812 North Moore project. It is a major component of Arlington County’s redevelopment of the Rosslyn neighborhood. 1812 North Moore provides a dramatic statement to the city skyline and revitalizes pedestrian traffic. The building has already attracted and some attention when Gerber and it’s parent company Nestlé relocated their headquarters there. (Not to mention the attention it attracted originally being designed to be taller than the Washington Monument and near the flight paths of the two major airports!)
The building’s skin strategically utilizes varying combinations of reflectivity, transparency, and ceramic frit to provide maximum thermal performance, to enhance the sense of tower height and slenderness, and to minimize the visual impact of tenant build-out when viewed from the outside. The project was designed to earn the LEED™ Platinum Certification and is now among the largest LEED Platinum office buildings in the country.
Photo: 1812 North Moore
Due to the intricate glass work needed and the developer Monday Properties’ desire to make a grand entrance, the project had required a highly skilled team in W&W Glass to help the architect achieve their design aspirations. Installer Tidewater Glazing worked with experts at W&W Glass to take on the high-span, multi-story Pilkington Planar™ structural glass entrances. The design resulted in two vertical walls (54 foot and 36 foot tall) made of Pilkington Optiwhite™ low-iron insulating face glass units coasted with HP 50/27 low-e on the #2 surface and two entire glass vestibules made of Optiwhite low-iron SentryGlas® laminated glass. For better insulating performance, the exterior units also included Argon fill in the cavity and stainless steel spacers. For this project, a stainless steel bar structure turned out to be the most suitable material to support the structurally-glazed facades. The strength and stiffness of steel is such that supporting elements are of smaller section and depth then could be used when braced with lateral struts or “kickers”. Thus this created a less obtrusive visual look than would be the case with other commonly-used materials such as aluminum that would need larger attachments at multiple levels, greater vertical box depths, and horizontal mullions in addition to the verticals to support the glass. Glass fins too would have required a greater depth, encroaching into the lobby much further.
In many situations, suspended structural glass wall systems will need separation from the base-loaded door portal areas, which was the case on this project. This separation is often created using stainless steel-clad structural steel tube framing. At 1812 North Moore, the transparent interior vestibule was created with a combination of two separate portal frames and laminated glass beams spanning in between thereby adding structure to support roof glass. The face glass for the cantilevered side walls and additional interior vertical support fins are Pilkington Optiwhite™ low-iron monolithic tempered glass. The exterior roof and fascia glass is comprised of Pilkington Optiwhite™ low-iron insulating SentryGlas® laminated glass units with HP 50/27 low-e on surface #2 and also uses Argon fill and stainless steel spacers like the rest of the exterior wall. For the interior overhead laminated fins (supporting the interior vestibule roof) and the interior roof fascia glass, Optiwhite low-iron SentryGlas® laminated glass was used. All main exterior walls were mounted with standard Pilkington Planar™ 905 series fittings to custom 304 stainless steel vertical bar plate beams (braced with horizontal struts) supplied by W&W Glass. The vestibules, however, were complex with multiple angles achieved by using custom formed stainless steel spring plates and Pilkington Planar™ 902 series fittings.
In addition to the environmental benefits from the building’s sustainable construction as echoed by it’s LEED rating, the project also provided an additional benefit to the community & surrounding streetscapes through improvements to the Rosslyn Metro Station.
For more information on all the projects completed and underway by the W&W Glass professionals, go to www.wwglass.com and look under the portfolio section.
W&W Glass LLC is a family owned business with a 70-year history in the metal and glass industry, one of the largest metal and glass companies in the New York metropolitan area and the largest supplier of structural glass systems in the country. We have over two decades of experience in the design and installation of various building enclosure systems, including stick-built curtain walls, pre-glazed unitized curtain walls, Pilkington Planar™ structural glass facades, and custom metal and glass enclosure systems. We install all of our work with our own dedicated union labor force. W&W is consistently the largest employer of glaziers in the NY metropolitan area.
