The Washington Ballet 
Washington, DC

Our entry in an invited competition to design a home for the Washington Ballet places the dancers, both students and professionals, on stage. Eight studios, seven for the school classes and one for the company, project through a patterned glass curtain to reveal the activity within, inviting the public to come join the dance.

On Wisconsin Avenue, the curved glass facade peels away from the street in order to save a large, much-loved specimen oak, to give a sense of movement to the building as it fronts the avenue, and to provide a foreground for this important cultural institution.

On the smaller-scaled Porter Street elevation, the building terraces down toward a green space that provides both a garden for the building and a buffer for the neighboring residential area.

Throughout the building, dance is celebrated through the choreography of the movement of users within the building and through the visibility of dance activity both within the building and from the street.